


Human

by hanaellena



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Argents are vicious, BAMF Lydia Martin, Brotherly Love, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Hurt Stiles, Kidnapped Stiles, PROBS COMPLETELY MEDICALLY INACURATE, Panic Attacks, Possible Character Death, Stiles has a very rough time, Stydia, Whump, poor baby, takes place at the beginning of season 4, this is a stydia story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-18
Updated: 2016-03-20
Packaged: 2018-02-09 09:50:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 34,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1978341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hanaellena/pseuds/hanaellena
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“It’s still there, eating away at you. Consuming you. And one day you’re going to give in to it. One day you’re going to crave it. Pain. Chaos. Death. You’ve had a taste, and soon it’ll be an addiction. Believe me, I know. You’re bad, Stiles. And there’s nothing that’s ever going to change that.”</p><p>After a big lacrosse game, things go downhill fast for Stiles in light of who's next on the Benefactor's hit list. It's up to Scott and the rest of the pack to try to rescue him, but they're running out of time. Lydia struggles desperately with her abilities, and the connection she holds with Stiles puts her in a dangerous place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

They'd celebrated like any crowd of seventeen year old boys would after winning their first lacrosse game of the season. Loudly.

Scott had chest bumped Stiles into a wall, having forgotten his werewolf strength amidst all the excitement. Stiles hadn't minded though and reacted only with another celebratory fist bump, still practically vibrating from the adrenaline of the match. And despite all the recent tragedies, dead pools, money issues and God knows what else, things somehow managed to feel great. Really really great.

They all wanted to cling to the feeling as long as possible for it was one that didn't come around often. They hadn't allowed themselves to feel it; to even  _think_  about feeling it. But now, there was room in their hearts and heads for something wonderful. Something that required cheering and chanting and jubilating in every way possible.

Stiles had been surprised to find Lydia in his arms on the field, holding him tight, congratulating him for scoring the final point. He'd felt her hair on his cheek and the warmth of her body against his own, comforting him even when he didn't need it.

As soon as she'd let go, Malia had replaced her, planting a rushed kiss on his mouth and then wrapping her arms around him just as the banshee had done beforehand. Stiles knew this was only her way of learning; learning what was to be done when their school's lacrosse team were victorious. But it still felt nice to hold her anyway.

Now he was pulling up outside his house in his jeep. He'd text his dad the good news the second he'd managed to escape the hoards of celebrating teenagers. Five seconds later he'd gotten a text back saying ' _you're a hero_ ' with way too many unnecessary exclamation marks, but it still made him smile despite the disagreement he held.

He'd never be a real hero, not after what he'd done.

Unfortunately, the sheriff had been unable to make the match due to an unexpected report that needed to be written for the next morning, so Stiles was actually really looking forward to seeing him. He could picture his father's face, proud and smiling, the way he wished it could always be.

After exiting his jeep, Stiles made his way to the front door, fumbling with his key in the lock only to find it open, which was strange, considering his very safety concious father almost never left it unlocked. This was one hundred percent justifiable due to their residence in Beacon Hills, the town renowned for dangerous supernatural creatures and unexplained death.

Stiles stepped inside, shutting the door behind him. He'd half expected his father to be waiting in the hallway, ready to celebrate the second he arrived home, however he found it empty. Instead, he discovered him at the kitchen table, looking down at a laptop with intense concentration burned into his features. His arms were in his lap.

Okay, so something was definitely wrong. Great.

When Stiles entered the room, his father looked up immediately, though his expression was anything but proud and smiling. It was more terrified.

"Stiles, run."

Stiles seemed to go brain dead for a second. He wondered if he'd heard correctly.

"Wha-"

But then an intense pain shot through his entire body. His muscles seized and contracted. His arms and legs went rigid. And it didn't stop until he was tumbling to the ground where he hit his head hard on the floor, unable to move bar the spasms tearing through his system.

He recognised the sensation of being tased. It was horrific, and it was only made worse by what he could now see. From his place on the wooden floor he saw his fathers hands duck-taped together beneath the table, and his feet secured with the same silver bindings to the legs of his chair.

"Don't touch him." his father spoke, anger and fear trickling through his frantic voice as his eyes flicked between Stiles and the attacker that was outside of his frame of sight. "Don't you dare touch my son."

The sheriff desperately tried to stand, but his restraints wouldn't allow it. Stiles attempted to yell but the words were lost in his throat when his tongue failed to function. And when the stranger decided to speak, his stomach dropped through the floor.

"But I've been waiting so long, Sherrif"

It was Kate's voice.

And it was then that the accompanying body stepped into his line of sight, tall and blonde and psychotic as ever. All Stiles could do was lay and twitch uncontrollably as Kate tossed his father's phone down on the table. She then proceeded to strike the sheriff twice across the face leaving him wincing, blood on his lips. Stiles nearly choked at the sight.

"Still feel like a hero, Stiles?" said Kate, and Stiles thought he might explode with hatred.

"Now, before we leave, I have one more thing to clarify with you, Sheriff." Kate stated while Stiles tried desperately to gain back control of his body. His breaths came short and panicked when he was unsuccessful. He wondered how long Kate had been here. "If any other humans get involved," she said "and that includes police officers, I'll put a bullet straight through your sons head and we'll try again with someone else'd kid. You got that?"

The sheriff was looking at Stiles when he nodded grimly, worry etched into his face.

"Thanks for being so co-operative." said Kate with a smile. She turned to Stiles then, taking a couple steps before crouching down before him. Stiles could do nothing but tremble as she wove a hand into his hair and lifted his head up from the ground, disturbingly gentle. He glared at her, anger and confusion spiking within him.

"I hope you don't mind, Stiles. But we're going on a trip." she told him, tilting her head with a slight smile. That was when she slammed his head back down upon the wooden floorboards with a crack. The supernaturally aided force sent agony bursting across his skull and caused his darkening world to sway. He heard his father yelling out his name before the pain dragged him into a deep inescapable unconsciousness.

* * *

Stiles seemed to wake several times and fall under again before coming around completely. The blackness swallowed him up repeatedly in an almost comforting way, like a blanket,or a mask upon reality. Each time he awoke, it was to an all consuming black caused by the impromptu blindfold wrapped around his head. There were vibrations ratting through his body and a loud familiar rumbling that he recognised as his own jeep. Each moment of consciousness however, felt like nothing more than an unfathomable dream, though it was a dream tainted by the throbbing in his head and an uncomfortably prominent urge to throw up. The word  _concussion_  echoed somewhere in the back of his mind, buzzing like an insistent insect.

When he finally broke through to clarity, the vibrations had stopped and he found himself sitting upon a leather couch in a room he didn't recognise. It took him a while to gather his senses around the searing pain in his head, but through the darkness he made out a door and one small window, across which curtains had been pulled. He immediately made to stumble up and run, but then Kate's dark figure was in front of him, gun in hand, holding it so that the barrel was pointed directly at his head. He felt the metal pressing against the skin on his forehead then, guiding him back onto the sofa slowly.

"Don't make me shoot you already, Stiles."

Stiles sat back down, a lot less intimidated by the imminent threat of death than he should have been. Right now he just felt confused, and angry, and more than anything, worried.

"Where's my dad?" he asked, his voice serious and unwavering. Kate didn't move an inch.

"He's at home, and he's fine." she said. "I wouldn't hurt him anyway. Orphaning a child would be cruel. I'm not a monster, Stiles."

"Says the woman who burned an entire family alive." Stiles uttered bitterly.

Kate looked at him, face straight.

"It was a necessary evil."

She lowered the gun then, and Stiles thought about how easy it would be for him to run. He wasn't tied down, but there was a reason for that. He was human. There was no need for restraints when claws and supernatural strength were readily available.

"What do you want?" he asked instead. Kate looked too serious now, almost afraid.

"You'll find out." she said, her eyes dusting over him quickly. She slipped the gun into the waste band of her jeans, rolling her eyes when she caught him staring at it, a calculating look on his face. "If you try to run," she said in response to his expression, "I'll break your legs. Then you won't be running for an awful long time." Kate leaned forward slightly and Stiles found himself instinctively pushing back into the couch without realising. "We wouldn't want you missing out on any lacrosse games because you can't run, would we? Daddy would be so upset."

Stiles swallowed the lump in his throat.

"Lady, you're insane." he said, though now his voice shook slightly, more at the mention of his father than anything else. Kate just raised her eyebrows, then suddenly she was behind him and out of his sight in three long strides. For some reason he daren't turn to see what she was doing, and the not knowing unnerved him an extensive amount. He found himself staring at the door, praying that any second, Scott, or even Derek would crash through, fangs out and ready to rescue their pathetic, defenceless, totally human friend. And then maybe he would get an explanation to why the hell he'd been kidnapped by Kate fricking Argent in the first place.

When Kate arrived back in front of him, there was a device in her hand. And with a pang of apprehension, Stiles recognised it to be his own phone. It began to ring, once, twice, three times before a tired and too familiar voice sounded through.

"Stiles, what's up?" came Scott's voice on loudspeaker, noticeably weighed down with sleep.

"Hey Scott. How are things?" Kate replied, and Stiles had to restrain himself from knocking the phone straight from her hand. Tension twisted his stomach into a knot of dread.

When Scott spoke again, his voice was suddenly wholly alert and awake, though laced with ice and fear.

"Kate. I swear to God if-"

"Stiles is fine." Kate interrupted. "As of now, anyway."

"Where is he?"

"Right here. You can talk to him if you like. Go ahead, Stiles."

Kate held the phone out to him but Stiles didn't feel much like co-operating with the murderous, psychotic bitch who'd tased him, knocked him out and kidnapped him, so instead he simply glared at her and kept his lips shut tight.

Kate tilted her head, then dropped the phone onto the sofa next to Stiles. The next thing he felt was intense, searing pain as long,thick claws were burying themselves in his thigh. He couldn't help crying out as his reflexes instantly sent him clawing desperately at Kates hand, the one that was now pressed firmly into his leg. But then her other was upon his shoulder, thrusting him back into the leather cushion behind him, restricting and minimising his movements.

"Stiles!" came Scott's panicked voice in reaction to his outburst of pain. Kate leant over him, her claws still deep in his flesh, her face inches from his own.

"I said, go ahead, Stiles."

Stiles gasped for breath, sweat breaking out across his forehead and neck. He did everything he could not to be sick.

"Scott," he blurted out shakily. "Scott, I'm okay. I'm here. It's okay."

As the words left his lips, Kate release her grip. Stiles seemed to breath again the second she let go. He immediately went to clutch the pained area where blood was already beginning to seep through and stain the fabric of his lacrosse shorts. The room span.

"Now, that wasn't so hard, was it?"

Stiles just shook his head frantically.

"Stiles? Stiles?!" came Scott's voice again, panicked and desperate.

"I said I'm fine, Scott." Stiles repeated, though the breathy sound of his voice told otherwise.

"I'm gonna get you out of this, okay?" The determination in Scott's voice was false and fearful. Stiles could visualise him perfectly, pacing his room, running his hands through his hair, trying to think of anything he could do; coming up with nothing. "I'll call Derek, Deaton, Lydia." Scott continued. "Kira, Malia, Argent. We'll come get you. I promise."

Kate seemed to hesitate at the sound of her brother's name. But if it phased her, she didn't let it show.

"If you do what I say, I'll straight up  _give_  him back to you, Scott." she said, matter-of-factly. "Even in one piece if you like."

For a couple of seconds, there was silence on the other end. But then the werewolf's voice echoed through again.

"What do you want, Kate?"

Kate snatched the phone back up again and brought it to her lips.

"I want to know why someone is out there trying to kill me for money." she said, fury and what Stiles could have sworn was fear showing through in her voice. Realisation hit Stiles hard with the statement.

"You're next." he said, more to himself than Kate. The older woman looked at him, and even in the dark, Stiles could see her eyes flash with nervousness.

"What do you mean?" she said, her voice quieting.

"There's a deadpool." he said dimly, body and leg still throbbing. "All the supernatural creatures in Beacon Hills are on it."

"Including me," Scott chimed in through the phone.

"There's a list." continued Stiles, hand still pressed over his bleeding leg. "People on that list are dying. We don't know why. We don't know who made it. But you're next, aren't you?"

"No, Stiles. You're next." Kate pulled the gun out again then, placing it back against Stiles' forehead. Stiles' tensed, his heart rate giving away the fear that he refused to let show on his face. There was a click.

"You hear that, Scott?" said Kate. "That's me releasing the safety on the pistol I have pointed at your best friends head. And unless you and your little buddies come through, I won't hesitate to pull the trigger. I want this guy dead, Scott. I want him dead."

"I don't understand." came Scott's voice, urgent and frantic. "What do you expect me to do? He's trying to kill me too!"

"I expect you to work it out, Scott." said Kate. "You kids have a funny habit of being able to do that."

"You're overestimating us." said Scott. "We can't do this, Kate. We can't do what you want us to do."

Kate stared at the phone in her hand as if she were looking at Scott directly.

"Then perhaps you need some motivation."

Stiles wasn't expecting the brutal blow she planted across the side of his face with the butt of the gun. A strangled sound left his lips and he fell sideways, nearly slipping from the couch, overwhelmed with disorientation. But then Kate grabbed the front of his lacrosse jersey, lifting him up and repeating the action again. Another truck load of hurt exploded across his cheek where he felt skin split.

She hit him once more before throwing him onto the floor. His mind was far too scattered to even make an attempt to catch himself, so instead he landed with a thud that shook his whole frame. There was blood on his face, in his mouth, and the next thing he knew, Kate was grabbing his arm and tugging him roughly onto his back. She shoved a heeled boot into his shoulder, pressing down hard, bringing tears to his eyes. He couldn't help releasing a pained cry as she dug in harder, deeper. And he barely heard Scott's yells being cut off as Kate ended the call.

"I hope you know this isn't personal, Stiles." she said. "I just have to send a message. I hope you understand."

She pulled her heel away and Stiles gasped in relief. But then one, two, three impossibly powerful kicks were thrown into his side making him choke and hunch over winded. Stiles stretched out his arms and bent his legs in an attempt to crawl; to wrench himself away from the barrage of abuse, but then strong hands were around his ankle, dragging him so that his arms fell out beneath him. And again he was on his back, struggling for air and utterly vulnerable.

Kate looked down at him, and there was no pity on her face, no hesitation in her eyes, just an objective. Just a mission.

She held up the gun once more, and this time she fired.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your comments! Please keep doing it, it's great motivation to update sooner and they make me smile:) Sorry about the brevity here, writing the sheriff's reaction was really difficult. I hate it when characters seem OOC so I tried my best to keep them realistic! Stay tuned.

Scott opened the front door to find the sheriff standing on his doorstep. He hadn't called the man, but the red marks around his wrists and the intense expression on his face suggested he was already well aware, maybe even more so than Scott, of the situation at hand.

"What do you know?" asked the sheriff coldly.

"Enough." said Scott.

"Do you know where he is?"

Scott gulped and shook his head. The older man's face didn't change. He walked straight past Scott and into the living room where he turned round, breathing hard, looking like he might explode.

"That monster broke into my home, Scott." he said, a barely audible break in his voice. "She taped me to a chair, pretended to be me over text, and then kidnapped my son. I need to find him. I need to find him or so help me God-" The Sheriff paused and took a deep breath, trying to stay calm. He looked at Scott, and the mad worry on his face was a painful sight. "She told me that you'd know what to do to get him back." he continued. This time his voice was more controlled yet desperate and wavering. "Please tell me she was telling the truth. Please tell me you know, Scott."

Scott hesitated. His heart pounded hard. He didn't know what to say.

"It's complicated." was what he landed upon.

The sheriff's eyebrows turned inward.

"Then un-complicate it." he said, harsh and low.

So reluctantly, Scott told him about the phone call he'd received ten minutes earlier. About Kate being next on their latest serial killer's hit list. About how she wanted them to kill whoever or whatever it was. And about how Stiles' life was on the line if they didn't. He chose to leave out the cries of pain he'd heard before he'd been cut off, as well as the noise of metal crashing against skin and bone repeatedly. The sounds had torn themselves an unpleasant place in his memory, and there was no need for them to be corrupting the sheriff's head too.

"So we either find this killer, we find Kate, or my son dies." said the sheriff in summary, his hands starting to shake.

"We can trace his phone." suggested Scott hopefully. "We need to start looking. We need to be at the police station. We need to tell everyone."

"No, no police." said the sheriff. "No humans except me. Where's Derek? We need Derek."

"He's on his way, why?"

"Good."

As if on cue, there was a knock at the door. Scott could already hear Derek's steady heartbeat before he even turned the handle. The werewolf's face was deadly serious as he entered, not waiting for permission.

Scott jumped when the sheriff rushed forward suddenly and pushed Derek into the wall hard. The impact knocked a picture frame from it's mount. Stiles' father's hands were wrapped firmly into the other man's jacket.

"Stiles told me you knew her." The Sheriff's voice was like ice, severe and unforgiving. "Where would she have taken him? Tell me."

Derek glanced at the sheriff's hands, and then at his frenzied glare. Scott knew he would be able to overpower the man in a heartbeat, but the werewolf simply stood there, face contorting into one of sadness and frustration.

"I don't know." he said simply. "I'm sorry."

The sheriff's hands seemed to clench tighter for a second, but then he released his grip and stumbled backwards, shaking his head and muttering something under his breath. All of a sudden he looked utterly lost, and eventually he faltered over to the couch where he dropped down, letting his head fall into his hands. Derek stepped forward opening his mouth to speak, but then he seemed to decide against it and his lips fell shut.

There was an uncomfortably tense silence. It moved to inhabit every crack of the room and rang in Scott's head, filled with unease and trepidation. It only came to an end when all three of them heard the sound of Scott's phone vibrating from his back pocket.

He pulled it out and his heart jumped at the sight of the text message with Stiles' name upon it. He almost didn't open it out of sheer fear for what he might read.

But it wasn't something he  _read_  that had the claws extending from the ends of his fingers and his heart jumping into his throat, it was something he _saw_.

Attached was a photograph. A photograph of Stiles. He was laying on a carpeted floor under dim light with his eyes closed. His right cheek was decorated with an ugly bruise and his lip was badly split. But what disconcerted Scott the most was the blood. It soaked his shorts where five puncture marks had been made. The same crimson covered the arm and right side of his jersey. Considering Kate's earlier threats, Scott could only guess the cause of it all to be a bullet. He had to force himself to keep from turning right there and then out of sickness and rage. His stomach twisted and bile rose in his throat.

Beneath the picture, Kate had written:  _He's still alive. Just passed out, poor thing. But there's an awful lot of blood so I'd hurry if I were you. Show this to the sheriff. I'm sure he'll appreciate the update. Chop chop._

"Scott, what is it?" asked Derek, obviously sensing his rise in panic. The sheriff rose his head and looked at Scott expectantly; fearfully. Scott opened his mouth but didn't know where to begin.

"It's from Kate." he said finally, and his voice was the least sure it had ever been.

"Let me see it." ordered the sheriff, quickly standing up and holding out his hand.

Scott paused, pulling the phone towards him. He couldn't let the sheriff see his son like this. It would only make things so much worse.

"Scott, give me the phone right now." The sheriff stepped forward. Scott looked to Derek. The older werewolf just stared at him blankly.

"Scott." the sheriff's voice had never sounded so dark. Scott didn't move, but then the phone was snatched from his hand regardless and Scott could only watch in horror as the man stared down at the screen, face turning a deadly shade of white as he examined the image of Stiles' broken and bleeding body and took Kate's words in. After a few seconds his hand started to tremble uncontrollably and the phone slipped from his grasp. It hit the carpet with a muffled thud.

"I'll kill her." he said, and for the first time in Scott life the thought of someone's death was totally, unconditionally okay.

Kate Argent was going to die.

* * *

Stiles came back around as Kate hooked her arms under his own and lifted him easily before dumping him back onto the couch. His vision immediately blurred and his world clouded over with pain at the movement. His shoulder was burning, throbbing, searing to a point at which was border-lined unendurable.

He remembered the semi-silenced bang, the iron fist crushing the point three inches in from his right armpit where the bullet entered, and then darkness. Darkness to which he wished more than anything he could return. It was a place void of this inescapable agony. Void of anything at all. Only dreams of a past life where werewolves only existed in myth and he still chased after a girl who didn't know he existed. Maybe even his mother would be there, smiling, holding him, comforting him.

It was only the insistent ache that told him his dreams hadn't just transformed into a particularly horrific nightmare, because the haziness suggested as such. It was difficult to focus on anything, or even keep his head up. So he decided not to bother, letting his chin fall onto his chest where he felt the rise and fall of each stinging breath.

A hand tapped his cheek firmly. Then the same hand was upon his shoulder, fingers pressing harshly into the wound there. Stiles immediately shot up, hissing in pain, his throat too raw to yell.

"Wake up." ordered Kate. "I can't have you dying just yet."

She let go and Stiles held back a pained groan. Instead, he gritted his teeth, breathing hard through an onslaught of dizziness.

Kate lifted his phone and wavered it in front of him mockingly.

"I'm sure your father and friends will enjoy the little snaps I sent them. Don't you think?"

It took a second for Stiles to register what she meant, but when he did his stomach curdled and his heart broke it's sluggish pace. He couldn't believe he was putting his father through this again. After the Nogitsune. After everything. It was too much.

"You better hope they work something out soon." said Kate, and Stiles just sat, not sure whether to cry or throw a punch or just pass out again. "That bullet is still lodged in your shoulder. It could do with being removed or this is going to end a whole lot quicker than I'd have hoped."

Stiles struggled to keep his vision focused.

"Screw you." he said, and for some reason he was surprised at how pathetically empty and exhausted he sounded. Kate just looked at him, almost pitifully.

"I'm afraid Derek already did that."

Stiles' head lulled again, but he dragged it back up before Kate could take it upon herself to do so again. His eye lids were heavy and his body cold. The pain seemed to have lessened in his shoulder, however now it formed a more harrowing ache in his head and he screwed his eyes shut in some useless attempt to lessen it. He knew it was down to blood loss, and too much of it.

Kate was right. Scott needed to do something soon. Fatigue was sinking in. And he didn't know how much longer he would last.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I'm really frustrated because this website isn't allowing me to post chapters in normal formatting without it going haywire and all over the place so I'm having to use limited HTML and change it around a bit. I hope it still reads okay. This story is more brutal than I expected it to be. Thank you so much for reading though, and all your comments are super wonderful amazing great, please keep doing it!! Let me know what you think, what you would like to happen, give me ideas etc. Thank you!

"I have a question for you, Stiles."

Stiles blinked lethargically as his body gradually grew less responsive. He hadn't noticed Kate dragging up a chair. Now she sat upon it facing him, watching him, making him feel vulnerable and claustrophobic. She had her legs crossed with one arm hanging over the back of the seat almost casually.

"When I called Scott," she said, sounding like a police officer about to interrogate their suspect. "He told you he'd get help. Big werewolf Derek. All-knowing Deaton. My brother. But I couldn't help noticing he failed to mention someone very important. Someone very important  _to me_. Why didn't he say Alison's name, Stiles?"

Stiles felt something curl in the pit of his stomach. He didn't look at her. He couldn't.

Kate didn't know.

She didn't know.  _She didn't know._

The were-jaguar uncrossed her legs and leant forward. Stiles could practically feel her eyes burning into him.

"Stiles? Why didn't he say her name?"

Stiles swallowed, his mouth unbearably dry. He didn't say anything, and the silence seemed to transform into something solid and tangible, closing in on him, suffocating.

He glanced at Kate only for a second, but that was all it took. He caught a moment of her eyes widening with realisation before she stood up and turned away from him quickly, her hand rushing up to her mouth. She stood there for seconds that dragged on for an eternity, and all Stiles could do was sit and gaze at the back of her unfocused head, his body drenched in a cold nervous sweat.

When Kate turned back around, her face had changed into something disconcertingly calm. Some controlled sense of fury radiated from her, only making her seem more unpredictable; more frightening.

"How?" she asked, her voice low.

Stiles swallowed again. He didn't even know if he had the strength to answer. But then Kate was striking out, and her palm caught him across the face with a slap that had his head spinning. His already bruised cheek smarted and throbbed as he winced.

"I asked you a question."

Stiles dragged his head back forward, his breaths coming ragged and pained.

"Nogitsune." he said, and even the word alone made him want to punch something, or break down, or both. "It was a Nogitsune."

Kate was silent. But Stiles could tell from her face that she recognised the name, most likely through her brother. That meant she knew of it's power, it's evil; the destruction it could bring. Her eyes bored into him, never leaving his face.

"Who?" she said, and Stiles returned her gaze in confusion.

"What do you mean?" he asked, voice cracking and raw.

"I mean, who? Who murdered her?" said Kate. "Yeah, I get it. The Nogitsune did. But someone had to be weak enough to let the bastard in in the first place. Someone had to offer up their reins. So, who?"

Stiles held his breath. He didn't know where to look, what to say, what to do.

"It was you, wasn't it?" she said, and her voice was too calm, too composed.

All the air in the room seemed to disappear.

"It was you." she said again. And the words tore at him because of their trueness. The only other person who'd said them was himself inside his head, and hearing them from another's lips made him want to close off; to disappear entirely.

Then Kate was gone again, walking off behind the couch and the tension within him built even further. She was gone for a while, and Stiles very briefly considered heading for the door, but he knew an attempt at escape would only end in more pain, and for some reason the threat of  _broken legs_  didn't seem so empty anymore.

Kate came back a few minutes later with something in her hand. Stiles stared in horror when he realised what it was. It was a pen knife.

She sat back down and held out the blade, turning it in her hand, examining it. Then her eyes returned to Stiles.

Fear thrummed away within him. He glanced at the knife, then to Kate, and his expression said the words he didn't dare ask.  _What are you doing with that?_

Kate's face remained unchanged. Serious. Deadly.

"I can see it in your eyes." she said, and her tone of voice made Stiles shiver. "It's still there, eating away at you. Consuming you. And one day you're going to give in to it. One day you're going to  _crave_  it. Pain. Chaos. Death. You've had a taste, and soon it'll be an addiction. Believe me, I know. You're  _bad_ , Stiles. And there's nothing that's ever going to change that."

"I guess dying will" said Stiles, too exhausted for Kate's words to do the damage truly intended. "And dying's feeling pretty imminent right now."

"Oh no," said Kate. "You're not dying just yet. I won't have it. Hence this."

Kate wavered the knife in front of Stiles' face.

"I planned on waiting out for your friends; letting them patch you up, after they'd done what I'd asked of course. But something tells me I might take enjoyment out of doing it myself. That bullet really does need to be removed after all."

Stiles found himself trembling.

"Please, don't." he said, and his voice resembled some sort of lost child.

"I'm afraid I can't comply." said Kate, lifting up the blade once more.

Despite his protesting body and how useless he knew it was, Stiles immediately tried to scramble away. But Kate's free hand clamped down on his shoulder and pushed him down hard, fixing him in place.

"If you struggle, it'll only hurt more."

Under her iron grip, Stiles closed his eyes as Kate brought the metal blade to his shoulder. She cut away the fabric of his top, and when it sank into his flesh, he was deafened by his own screams.

* * *

"Concentrate, Lydia."

"What the hell do you think I've been doing all this time?"

"Just don't worry, okay? You can do it."

"Stop telling me that. Just stop."

Lydia was sat on Stiles' kitchen floor. Scott and Malia were standing behind her. Derek was already in the midst of the night trying to pick up Stiles' scent as best he could.

There was a horrible feeling within her. It was a feeling of ash and ice and fire. A feeling of death.

She couldn't believe this was happening again. Stiles was missing. And she had no clue how to get him back. Her fists were clenched so tight that her knuckles were white. Her temple was blazing with pain, but she continued to listen, continued to watch, waiting for something,  _anything_. But as she sat, all she felt was pain and confusion and heart wrenching fear. She knew not all of it was her own, and that only worried her further.

"You have to hurry, Lydia." Malia's voice stabbed at her, pulling her from her head once more. "He's hurt. He could be dying. I can't lose him. Please, we have to find him."

"You think I don't know that?!" Lydia was shouting now, frustration tearing away at her insides. "You're not the only one that cares about him, okay? So be quiet!"

Malia shrunk back at Lydia's outburst, and Scott stepped forward, holding out an arm.

"Lydia, it's okay. We'll be quiet. I know this'll work. It has to."

Then Lydia was pushing Scott's hand away and getting to her feet in a rush.

"That's the thing, Scott. It won't work! It never does! I couldn't find him before and I won't be able to find him now! I can't help him. I can't help anyone! All I do is find the bodies. And I refuse to find Stiles' body, Scott. I refuse."

Before Scott or Malia could respond, Lydia was striding from the room and out of Stiles' front door to her car. It was only once she was outside that she noticed the tears on her cheeks. She got into the drivers seat and placed her hands on the wheel, staring out into the night before her. Her grip tightened as she tried to ground herself; tried to keep herself from falling apart. For a second it almost didn't work. She was at the very borderline of breaking, sobbing, screaming. But thankfully, with the help of a few deep breaths, she managed to hold on just for that little bit longer.

Lydia looked back at Stiles' house, then turned her key in the ignition and drove.

She didn't know where she was going, what she was doing. She just needed to get away; to get out. But as her car journeyed further, something began to build within her. It started out as terror, but not her own, curling and spinning and rising until her hands shook. And then she was slamming her foot down on the breaks as sheer agony bloomed within her. A scream,  _Stiles'_ scream, bounced from the windows of the car; echoed in her head. She brought her hands to her ears, trying desperately to drown out the horrific sound, but it was no use. Lydia fumbled for the door handle, eventually swinging it open and collapsing out onto the road. There she slid down, back against the wheel of her car, hands pressed tight to her ears again as tears rolled down her cheeks and the pain continued to swell. The only way she could drown it all out was with her own extended scream, one that would have deafened any living thing nearby. It ripped through her throat and into the atmosphere.

Eventually the chaos in Lydia's head died down. She found herself panting, exhausted as the night began to close in on her, now filled with an all-encompassing silence. The sound; the  _sensation_  of Stiles' agony was now imprinted upon her mind, making her want to be sick. She looked down and saw blood under her finger nails where she had clawed the concrete road desperately, though she didn't remember doing so.

It wasn't a scream for his death. Lydia knew that. But it was a prediction for one. She knew not whose.

Lydia had never been so angry, so frustrated, so upset. She knew Stiles was in trouble, she didn't need to feel it too. She questioned the point in her abilities at all. All they did was make it so much worse for her. And now she was in the middle of nowhere, crying in the road on a school night. When had this become her life?

She fumbled for her phone, ready to tell Scott of the terror she had heard. Though before she could pull it out it, something in the distance caught her eye. Her senses jumped alive.

It was Stiles' jeep.

* * *

The darkness bled away as Kate removed the glowing blue spoon from the now cauterized wound.

"We wouldn't want you bleeding out all over my couch now, would we?"

There were tears making tracks down Stiles' cheeks now. A sob wracked though his body and maybe he should have been embarrassed, but the pain outweighed any shame that could possibly exist, or any desire to keep from giving Kate her satisfaction.

He noticed scratch marks on the woman's arm, ones that he didn't remember making. And when she pulled it away, Stiles whole body slumped. Thankfully, Kate didn't hurt him this time when his head dropped forward. It would have made no difference if she did anyway. He was too exhausted to even move. He felt like he was dying, slowly.

Kate leant back in her chair, holding the white hot utensil out before her, looking at it rather than Stiles.

"Sorry I wasn't very gentle, Stiles."

She picked up the bottle of whisky from the floor, the one she'd poured over his wound moments earlier, and took a swig.

"But I think deep down you know that it's only what you deserve." she said. "All of this. Maybe it's simply some twisted form of retribution."

Maybe if Stiles still owned half his senses, he would have retaliated, calling Kate a hypocrite, calling her a bigger monster that he was or ever would be, asking her when she expected retribution to be made for her own grotesque actions.

And if he still owned his senses, maybe he would have heard an oh so familiar banshee scream echoing into the night somewhere outside.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh my word. Poor Stiles. I am a horrible person. Thank you for all your comments! Keep doing it! I love them! I'm sorry I'm taking so long between chapters, I guess I've been super busy. I'll try my best to update faster!

Lydia walked, guided by some invisible thread, the way it always went, steered by the distant aura of fate and death.

It was trance-like. She didn't even think about the phone she'd left in her unlocked car, or the fact that she was completely, utterly alone. The pull within her seemed to overcome every other emotion, every shred of rational thought. It was a pull towards the unknown; towards  _him,_ sparked by the sight of his empty Jeep and the droplets of blood staining its back seat.

She walked through trees now, along a path she didn't recognise. The sky was cloudless, revealing a fairy grotto of stars and a bright white moon: light for her journey. The trees stretched up and reached out to tug the alleviated pearl back down to Earth, the shadows of their leafy branches dappling the cool light upon the ground. It was eerily beautiful, but it seemed wrong to think such a thing at a time like this.

There was no sound, which was strange. She felt almost as if she'd stepped into the white room at her beach house, into utter silence. The wind had abandoned its play of rustling though the trees. The insects had quit their whispering from beneath the undergrowth. The only noise came from her feet landing upon the path and the short shaken breaths that left her lips.

It was for this reason that the sound of something moving nearby had her shaken from her intense reverie. There came the snap of a dried out branch, the crunch of fallen leaves, and as the sounds drew nearer, Lydia realised with a shot of fear that whatever it was wasn't trying to be quiet. It was coming for her. And it didn't care that she knew.

Lydia came to a sudden stop, turning around, staring into the darkness. Goosebumps rose on her skin. Her heart spiked. She couldn't see it. But it was there. Watching her. And fear sent her limbs rigid.

It was then that the figure revealed itself. Huge. Familiar. Only a few feet away. There was a mask upon its face, a mask of bone. It fingers drew into blade and it's shape was outlined by the moonlight, black and terrifying.

A beserker.

Lydia's breath hitched. She stood, unmoving, simply staring. But when the creature stepped forward, something came awake within her, forcing her feet to move, forcing her to survive.

She turned and ran, her hair splaying across her face, lungs working hard and fast. Though she didn't make it far before she was crashing into something and tumbling backwards across the uneven ground, utterly disorientated. She looked up, and there stood another, looking down at her through sockets of bone, and if it had an expression, it would have told her that she'd lost; that it was over; that she was going to die.

Then, there was darkness.

* * *

Stiles was beginning to lose track of time. The world kept going in and out of focus. Every now and then, Kate would shake him awake, though he wasn't aware he'd been sleeping.

His whole body hurt, as if his own blood was the poison causing it. He was beginning to feel hot, almost too hot. He felt his hair sticking to his forehead and a sheen of sweat upon his skin. The disconcerting amount of blood from his wounds caused his jersey and shorts to stick to him, becoming stiffer and more uncomfortable as the blood started to dry. His breaths came ragged and shaken, hurting as the air passed over his parched and broken throat.

A cold hand was placed gently against his forehead; it would have been soothing if it didn't belong to the monster who'd done this to him in the first place. When Kate removed her hand from his overheating skin, a look that almost resembled concern came over her face.

She stared at him, and Stiles could only glance back before a violent cough racked through his body, only hurting his raw throat further.

Then Kate was gone, and to Stiles surprise, she came back with a large glass in her hand. She sat back down and held it out towards him.

"Drink." she said firmly.

Stiles didn't move, just stared at the glass blankly. Kate looked impatient.

"I'm trying to keep you alive." she said. "Drink it."

Stiles swallowed painfully, not sure whether to obey or not. But it didn't take long for his thirst to get the better of him. He leant forward as Kate brought the glass to his lips. He lifted his hands to take it from her, but the wrench of pain in his shoulder had him hissing and hunching over. Water, and it really was only water, spilled from the glass and down his front.

Kate rolled her eyes. After placing a hand upon his good shoulder, she pushed him back up straight. Stiles' body protested, but he was too weak to resist. She kept her hand there when she pressed the glass to his lips again. Stiles didn't make an attempt to move this time.

"Steady." said Kate, gently tilting the glass. Some of the cold liquid filled his mouth and immediately began to sooth his throat. Most poured over his chin and neck and onto the fabric of his clothes. He didn't care. He gulped it down, like liquid heaven.

Less than a minute later, the water was gone. He could only wish for more, though he knew that such a wish would never be granted. He could tell Kate was conflicted towards giving the person responsible for his nieces death anything at all. He was sure she'd rather see him dead. But right now she needed him.

At least Stiles had one thing to be grateful for.

He coughed again, though thankfully due to the water, this time it hurt less.

"They're gonna find me, you know." he said, voice too quiet. He looked at Kate with utter seriousness. "They're gonna find me. And then they're gonna kill you."

Kate tilted her head and lifted her arm to place a gentle hand against Stiles' bloody cheek. Some mock form sympathy was intended by the action.

"Oh sweetie," she said as Stiles felt her thumb stroke across his skin disturbingly. "No one's going to find you. Not unless I find them first."

Stiles really didn't want to know what she meant by that. Anger was swelling within him. Anger for his friends, for himself. The look Kate gave him was infuriating. She smiled, derisive and cruel.

"Your friends are going to do what I've asked. They're going to do it because Scott won't bare to risk the life of his hyperactive little waste of a best friend. And once they do, I'm going to put my gun to your head, and I'm going to pull the trigger. And then you'll be dead. There'll be crying and a funeral and speeches. But one day, and it probably won't even be that far into the future, they'll all forget about you. Daddy will go back to work. Your friends will take their exams and go to their lacrosse games. They'll leave smiling and cheering, and you won't even cross their minds. Not even once. Just like Allison."

Stiles seethed. Rage bloomed within him. He reached up with his working arm and shoved her hand away with all the strength he could conjure.

"You know what?" he spat. "You know nothing. If Allison were alive, she'd wish you'd have killed yourself when you were supposed to. She would hate you with everything she had. She'd probably put an arrow through you herself if it came down to it. She was everything you'll never be, and that's gonna eat you up from the inside out till the day you die. Allison would-"

Stiles was cut off by an impossibly brutal slap to the side of his head. He fell sideways. The world darkened around the edges. Kate grabbed him, tugged him back up, ready to strike again. And Stiles almost wanted her to. Maybe he'd fall unconscious, and then he wouldn't have to feel like this any more. She raised her flat palm, then curled her fingers into a solid fist.

"You have no idea what  _my_  family would have done. _You have no idea_."

Her voice was furious, filled with some mad kind of rage. Stiles closed his eyes and prepared himself for the blow that never came. Kate let go of him when a loud banging noise echoed from the door. It sounded three times. A knock?

Stiles sagged, his anger dissipating when his brain fell synonymous with his body once again. Exhaustion and pain seeped in through every pore.

Kate flexed her fingers, looking like she had to resist beating him to death right there and then. But another bang at the door had her turning, curiosity seeping in to join the fury on her face.

She walked to the door, pulling out a key and unlocking it agonizingly slowly. When she swung it open, Stiles wanted to scream, to break down, to give in.

There stood Lydia. Behind her was a beserker, intimidating as ever. There were trees behind them; Stiles didn't recognise it.

Lydia swayed slightly, and then the creature behind her shoved a clawed hand into her back and she stumbled forward into the room, clutching her forehead, where with a jolt of panic, Stiles saw blood.

Lydia seemed dazed for a second before her blazing eyes met with his.

"Stiles?" she said, tears on her cheeks. She lurched towards him, but then Kate's hand was in her hair, tugging her back. Lydia's hand flew up to grasp at the other woman's with a gasp. She tried desperately to break free, but her efforts were useless.

"Oh look, the cavalry's arrived." said Kate, holding the banshee like it was nothing. She turned her head and gave the creature in the doorway a quick nod, to which it immediately disappeared. Kate kicked the door to and pulled out the gun from her belt, the one Stiles could only associate with a whole lot of pain. She released the safety with a click, simultaneously letting Lydia go and holding the gun up to point the barrel of it straight at her.

"Sit." she said, gesturing with the gun to the point on the sofa beside Stiles. Lydia's hands trembled, though she didn't move. Kate let out a sigh.

"Alright then," she said, and now she moved her arm so the gun was pointing at Stiles. "Your friend here is having a really bad day. And I'm sure you don't want to make it any worse. So sit."

Lydia obeyed almost instantly, as soon as Stiles was threatened instead. Stiles felt her weight shift the cushion beneath him as she sat down next to him. Her arm brushed his own gently. He could tell she was terrified. And he didn't blame her. So was he. He wanted to yell at her, to scream at her for coming. But his lungs wouldn't have allowed it even if he'd tried.

Kate disappeared behind them and Stiles looked at Lydia pleadingly. She didn't return his gaze, simply stared ahead into nothing. Kate came back with a roll of duct tape and her gun securely back beneath her belt.

"Two of you will be harder to keep an eye on. So I best take precautions."

Stiles could have laughed in spite of himself. In his state, he quite obviously wasn't going anywhere. It was almost funny that Kate thought he might. He wondered what he must look like to Lydia. On the verge of death, probably. And he imagined that was the same reason Kate set to securing the banshee first, wrapping the thick silver tape around both her wrists and ankles. She followed suit with Stiles, pulling at his injured shoulder and forcing a pathetic whimper from his lips.

Kate dropped back into her chair then. Her eyes were on Lydia, and the fury was still obvious, burning away behind them.

"Where are your friends?"

Lydia didn't look at the were-jaguar, or anything at all, just continued to gaze into the darkness absently, silently.

"Come on," said Kate, "Speak up. How did you find this place? Did they send you here as a distraction? Are you trying to trick me? What's your purpose?"

Lydia refused to reply. And Stiles knew Kate's patience was non-existent, a fact that was confirmed when she grabbed his leg, the same one she'd buried her claws in earlier. Stiles felt the blunt ends of her fingers pushing into the wounds there. He was too tired to cry out, to move much at all really, but his breath came choked and hitching and he screwed his eyes shut at the pain. Lydia reacted then, her eyes widening in horror.

"I'm a banshee!" she blustered, panic stricken and desperate. "I hear things. I heard Stiles. I came alone. I promise. Just stop!"

Kate's eyebrows lifted and she let go, leaving Stiles trembling. She leant back, looking confused at first; then her face contorted into one of twisted, sickly interest.

"A banshee?" she said. "Well this just got a whole lot more interesting."


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys so much for reviewing and subscribing! I really disliked the last chapter, I hope this one is slightly better! I have to warn you though, I'm making this up entirely as I go along and have no idea what is going to happen. So please forgive me for plot holes, weird character decisions ect. If you have any ideas, I'd love for you to give me a message! I'm sorry this took so long! I've been at Leeds festival, but I'm back now. Enjoy!

“She’s not answering. Why isn’t she answering?”

Scott tried Lydia again to no avail. Malia snatched her phone from him, dialling once more as if it would make a difference.

“Why would she do this?” she exclaimed, slamming the device down on Stiles’ kitchen table when Lydia’s voicemail reeled off once more. “Why would she leave like this, knowing Stiles is out there? Why would she do that?”

“That’s the thing.” said Scott, concern filling his voice. “She wouldn’t.”

Would she? Scott knew it was a silly question. Of course she wouldn’t, not with Stiles’ life on the line like this. But then, Lydia didn’t deserve that. She didn’t deserve to have such a thing on her shoulders. Maybe they’d pushed the banshee too far. Maybe they’d been pushing her too far for longer than they knew. And she’d finally fallen from the edge. Guilt began to uncurl in his stomach like an awakening creature.

Scott stared at Malia’s phone upon the table, thinking. Then he snatched it up.

“I’ll call Kira and tell her to check Lydia’s house.”

Maybe she’d be there. Maybe she wouldn’t. And if she wasn’t...

“Who cares about Lydia?” said Malia, “What about Stiles?”

“You know his scent, right?”

“His scent? Yeah, of course.”

“Then lets go help Derek find him.”

Right now, without Lydia, there was nothing else they could do.

“Aren’t you forgetting the Benefactor?” Malia stated with frustration. “Surely that’s who we should be looking for. You said Kate would give Stiles back if we killed them. So let’s find whoever they are and do it.”

“Stiles is hurt, Malia. We don’t know how long he has left. The Benefactor can wait. Stiles can’t.”

Scott felt strange giving orders like this, especially to Malia, who stared at him, fear, anger, confusion seeping into the lines of her face. She was anything but calm, although Scott could see she was trying her best to be.

Malia paused. Uncertainly, she gandered at her phone in Scott’s hand, then sighed. 

“Okay.” But the word was irresolute.

“Go get an item of his clothing. It’ll make it easier.” Scott said, not noticing the authority trickling through in his voice. “I’ll be right back.”

“Where are you going?”

“There’s something I need to do.”

Malia looked as if she was about to question him, standing there perfectly still, watching him with cautious eyes, but then the were-coyote turned on her heel and sprinted up the stairs, heading to Stiles’ bedroom, her body shaking with determination.

Scott remained in the kitchen. He glanced down at the torn duck tape still stuck to the arms and legs of a chair. He saw blood on the floor where Kate had sent his best friend into darkness. The air was still saturated with the scent of panic, horror, electricity. It made him nauseous; afraid.

Scott tried his best to ignore it all as he stepped into the living room, to see the man who reeked of it the most.

The Sheriff sat upon the sofa. He had Scott’s phone clutched between both his worn hands. There he stared down at the haunting image of a wounded, unconscious teenage boy, his son, eyes passing over Kate’s words again and again as he let them melt into his skin and bones and mind, torturing him.

Scott stepped towards him, but the man didn’t look up.

The sight made Scott’s stomach feel hollow, sent a dire ache to his bones. He crouched down, his breathing steady, his heart heavy in his chest. He reached out, and the Sheriff didn’t protest when he slowly pulled the phone from his grasp, rescuing him from further pain. The man’s glance simply transferred to his own hands instead.

Scott took one last look at the bloody image on the screen, before deleting all evidence of it entirely.

“We’re gonna find him.” he said, voice low but assertive. “He’s going to be okay. I promise.”

Stiles’ father brought a hand to his face, wiped the moisture from his eyes. And finally he looked up.

“I know.” he said. “I’m not losing my son. Not now. Not ever.”

And then, quite suddenly, he stood up, his face changing into something hardened and controlled.

“You need to call Argent.” he said firmly.

“Argent? Why?”

The Sheriff’s eyes glazed over with a dark kind of certitude.

“I doubt there’s anyone who knows this bitch better than her own brother.”

 

Lydia was terrified. 

The sight of Stiles when she’d been shoved into the dark room only made it worse. She found she couldn’t even look at him now, because it only made her more desperate, more desperate to get him out, to get him home. On top of that, it made her afraid, afraid that he was the one she’d screamed for, that he would be the one to fall.

She hadn’t seen the photo Kate had sent to Scott. She’d chosen not to. But whatever it looked like, she knew this was worse. His skin was too pail. The bruises were too dark. His blood was too... everywhere. It made her shake.

“Banshee. Predictor of death.” said Kate, looking at her with some sick form of fascination. Lydia had never hated someone so much in her life.

“Isn’t she pretty?” Kate said this to Stiles, who didn’t respond. Perspiration coated his face and neck. His bound hands were hanging lose in his lap. Unmoving.

“I’m curious, Lydia, is it?” Kate’s voice was unnatural, tinted with anger, interest, madness, yet covered up with this false, conversational tone, all the more unsettling. “Can you predict any death tonight? Can you predict his?”

She gestured towards Stiles.

“Can you predict anything at all?”

Lydia’s shaking hands, her tears, her thrumming heartbeat, made the fear she held clear as day, though she didn’t answer. She simply chose a mark on the wall and focused on it, pretending it was the only thing in existence.

“I can make this worse for you, little banshee. So much worse.” said Kate in response to her silence. “Let Stiles here be an example of that.” She gently tapped Stiles knee with her words. “So I suggest you play along. It would be a shame if I had to shoot one of you again.”

Lydia felt her breath hitch.

“I don’t know.” she said, and her voice came weak and fearful.

She felt Stiles move then. His gaze was upon her, intense and worried. She didn’t even need to look to know. She could feel it, boring into her, like fire. She knew he could hear the lie between her words, loud and clear.

Kate’s eyebrows lifted. She brought up her hand and splayed her long fingers before her. Slowly, a claw extended from the end of each one

“I don’t appreciate people lying to me, Lydia.”

Apparently, Kate could hear it too.

Lydia trembled as Kate moved her hand forward. The older woman hovered the tips of her claws over her bare forearm. Lydia tried her best not to flinch as Kate applied a light pressure to her skin, sending a signal to her brain, telling her to prepare for something painful.

“Got anything yet?” The question came slow from Kate’s mouth.

“I’m telling the truth.” said Lydia. “I don’t know.” 

The pressure increased and Lydia closed her eyes in anticipation. She felt nothing more though. When she opened them again, Kate had let go of her. She turned to Stiles instead. 

Kate placed her hand upon the arch between his shoulder and neck, pressing her thumb to his collar bone at the base of his throat. Stiles’ eyes widened for a second, flashing from Kate to Lydia, back to Kate.

“What are you doing?” asked Lydia, frantically.

“Seen as you obviously don’t care about yourself,” said Kate, “I thought I’d try another tactic.”

Gently, too gently, Kate brought a perfect bead of blood to the surface with the tip of her claw, too bright against Stiles’ washed out skin - a warning.

Stiles barely reacted at all. His glazed eyes were fixed on Lydia now, reading her, trying to understand. Lydia still couldn’t bring herself to look at his face for more than half a second.

“I swear I don’t know.” she said, more desperate this time.

She didn’t want to say it. She didn’t want it to be true. She couldn’t let it be.

Kate rolled her eyes.

“Alright then.”

Her eyebrows turned inward and she began to press in.

“No, wait, stop!”

And thankfully, she did.

The sound of Stiles’ phone ringing from her left pocket brought Kate to a standstill. 

Stiles was breathing hard. His forehead was creased and his body tense, fear forcing him into lucidity. Lydia watched him slowly slump as Kate retracted her claws, looking slightly perturbed at the interruption. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the phone slowly. Lydia couldn’t see whose name was on the screen, but that didn’t matter because Scott’s voice was loud and clear.

“Kate. We have him. We have the benefactor.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m really sorry about this chapter, its god awful. I just dug myself a hole in the last one and had to get out of it quickly. I’m surprised I’ve actually managed to come up with something conceivable at all. I should have probably thought this fic through before I started writing it, but hey ho, hopefully it doesn’t put too many people off! I’m basically just trying to get the characters right, even if the plot is shoddy as hell. Thank you for reading and reviewing though, I love you guys!

They'd all decided to meet at Derek's loft, minus Lydia, to which Scott was growing increasingly unsettled, especially since Kira had received no answer after ringing her doorbell.

It was way into the night now, and all of them were exhausted yet alert with worry. He, Malia, the sheriff and a very serious Chris Argent stood around the small table towards the back of Derek's attic whilst the man himself and Kira hovered a few feet back, watching intently.

In the dim light, the wrinkles on the sheriff's face looked deeper; his eyes appeared darker. Scott felt disquieted by the sight of him, as it was a look he hadn't seen on the man since a certain dark spirit had been around. He looked wearied. He looked  _old_.

Scott had started explaining everything to Chris the second he'd lain eyes upon the older hunter. Everyone else listened silently, bar the sheriff, who now just glared down at the wood of the table, somewhat angrily.

Scott could feel Malia staring at him, making sure he included every single detail, however minor it may be. It didn't take long as there wasn't much to tell, and once he had finished, Argent paused only for a few seconds, thinking. His arms were crossed tightly across his chest.

"So Kate believes there's someone trying to kill her." He sounded like he was going through some kind of protocol, slow, serious, unwavering.

"Because there is." Malia said bluntly.

"The same someone who's trying to kill us." Scott added.

A frown lined Argent's face.

"This doesn't make sense." he said. "Taking Stiles in the way that she did was rash, stupid almost. Have you tried tracking his phone?"

"She told me she'd kill him if I went anywhere near a police station." said the sheriff quickly, voice strained. He didn't even look up.

"But how would she know?" Argent retorted. Scott could see the man trying to think like Kate, like his sister; trying to get into her head.

"She'd know once we turned up there, trying to save him. That's how." replied the sheriff, and Scott could see it now. He was still picturing it, the image of his son, eyes closed and bloody, pale as death. Letting it weave itself into his bloodstream like poison.

Argent crossed his arms, thinking hard. Scott could see Malia's eyes switching between the two men assiduously.

"This doesn't make sense." Argent said again, more to himself anyone else.

"What do you mean?" asked Scott. The sight of the sheriff made his voice more urgent.

"I know Kate." Argent said, and there was a slight hint of confusion in his tone. "Or at least I did. She always knew what she was doing. She always had a plan. But this, this is a mess. Even if you do kill the Benefactor, there's no way for her to be sure unless she sees it for herself. And she can't kill Stiles; she'd lose all her leverage that way."

"I'm not so sure about that." Scott said hesitantly. There was shift in the room as he felt all eyes land upon him. He cleared his throat nervously.

"Lydia's missing too." he said, accepting the truth of the statement now.

"Kate has her?"

"No, no." said Scott, then sighed. "I don't know."

Argent raised an eyebrow. Scott glanced at Malia who had a similar look on her face, then to the sheriff, then back to Argent.

"She and Stiles always had this sort of... connection." he said, practically feeling the frown carve itself into Malia's expression. "Ever since the sacrifice. It's just been there. She finds him when no one else can. Lydia was trying to find him; she drove off and didn't come back. So, I don't know. Maybe she found him."

"Well that changes things." said Argent.

"How?" said Malia. "How does it change anything at all?"

"Kate's scared." the hunter continued. "Terrified even. If she weren't, then she would have set some ground rules. She would have thought this out. It seems to me like she's making it up as she goes along. And for the most part, that's a good thing. It means we can manipulate her. It means we can narrow her options; make this go our way. On the other hand, it also makes her more unpredictable. If Kate's scared, if she's  _angry_ , there's no telling what she'll do, especially if she has one to spare."

" _One to spare?_ " exclaimed the sheriff. "That's my damn son you're talking about."

"To Kate, Stiles isn't anyone's son." said Argent firmly. "At the minute he's just the object blocking the bullets heading her way. So if we're going to find him, we have to do it soon. You need to get her to call you. You need to track his phone. You need to get him out."

"But how?" asked Scott frustratedly. "If Lydia's there too, what's to stop Kate killing either one of them the second she hears us coming?"

"What if Kate's not with them?" It was Malia that spoke now. "Surely she couldn't hurt them then, right? What if we lure her out? If she hasn't set any ground rules, then why don't  _we_? Tell her she needs to leave? Tell her we need to see her?"

"Tell her we have the Benefactor." Derek's voice came out of the blue, straight and assertive. Everyone turned to look at the werewolf with wide eyes. Scott felt a tiny amount of hope breath tamely within him at his words.

Scott looked back to Argent who finally uncrossed his arms, and he could tell by the man's face that the plan was forming. It was terrible one, but it was still a plan. And Scott would cling to it with everything he had.

* * *

"Kate. We have him. We have the benefactor."

Kate stood up instantly.

"Scott?!" exclaimed Lydia.

There was a crash and a yell and the call cut off.

Then Kate was lashing out and Lydia had to try her best not to fall onto her side when the were-jaguar's hand made contact with the side of her face.

"Lydia!" Stiles rasped, tugging desperately at the bindings around his wrists. His attempts were pitiful. Panic burst out within him, like kindling catching alight.

"They weren't supposed to know you were here." said Kate, leering angrily at the girl whose face had now crunched up in pain. Kate's eyes quickly flashed back to the phone in her hand as she called the number back quickly. The phone rang out, and Scott's voice mail sounded through.

"Come on." Stiles heard Kate say under her breath.

She tried again only to receive the same friendly tone of his best friends voice, one without trouble or fear. It reminded Stiles of another time, a  _better_  time.

Kate looked down at him for a moment, as if for some reason he might have answers. Stiles could barely return her gaze. He had to concentrate on steadying his breaths, keeping the panic at bay. Despite the sickness devouring him slowly, he could feel it rising within him. He could only channel it into anger, frustration, anything other than the sheer unprecedented hysteria that was threatening to take him over completely.

Kate looked back to Stiles' phone, pressed a button, Stiles could only assume she was turning off the loudspeaker, then tried calling Scott back once more.

He could tell by the way her eyes widened that this time it worked.

Neither he nor Lydia could hear what Scott was saying. But Kate's eyebrows turned inward and she kept glancing to the two of them, seeming to check their expressions.

"Do you really expect me to believe that for second?" she said incredulously.

Stiles glanced at Lydia, and this time she returned his gaze. Huge eyes the colour of summer leaves looked back at him, glazed over with fear. With her look of horror and confusion, he realised that the phone call meant as much to her as it did to him. She knew nothing. Had they really found the Benefactor? No. It was impossible.

He'd hoped that maybe, just maybe, Lydia was part of a plan, an awful one that he would complain about later. But no. She really had come alone. She'd found him, again. She was in danger and it was his fault.

At that realisation, the panic continued to build within him, though he suppressed it desperately, locking it away for another time when all of this would be over, when he'd be in his room, alone.  _That_  was when he could let go.  _That_  was when he could panic. So long as he didn't die first. But as his breaths came weaker and weaker and the blood continued to flow from his injuries, not to mention Kate's earlier threat, death was feeling more and more like his destined outcome.

"I'm not an idiot, Derek." blurted Kate. Both of their attentions were immediately dragged back to the phone call. Derek? What happened to Scott?

A few seconds passed, then Kate let out a spiteful laugh.

"That's funny." she said bitterly. "I'd have thought you'd learned by now which one of us deceives the other in this relationship." Kate's voice was almost satirical. "It would be nice to see that face again though, especially now it's all grown up."

Then Kate was listening again, and slowly her face began to change. Her eyes grew a little wider. Her lips came together into a line, her jaw set. Stiles could practically see the cogs turning in her mind, trying to process whatever she was hearing. He only wished he could hear it too.

"Where?" she said eventually, any trace of mockery gone from her tone.

Stiles heard the muffled incomprehensible reply from where he sat. Still Derek, he assumed. Kate glanced back at him again, but only for a very short moment.

"Alright." she said. "Be there now. I'll meet you when I get there. Bring him."

Another inaudible reply.

"You don't make the rules here, Derek. Be there when I am, or I'll come back and take one of their heads off, you got that?"

Kate hung up without waiting for Derek's next response.

Stiles heard a tiny sound leave Lydia's throat at Kate's latest threat.

The older woman slipped Stiles' phone into her jacket pocket before walking off behind them once more. She came back with a gun, not like the pistol beneath her belt. That seemed minuscule compared to this. This was something he'd only seen on television, bulky and threatening, the sort of thing he'd imagine Breaden, the hired gun, would carry into a fight.

"Alright kids." said Kate with a sigh, letting the gun fall down by her thigh. "Momma's got some business to take care of. I'll be back soon. Don't bother trying to run. You won't get very far with my beserkers right outside. I'm sure you're already quite aware of that though."

Kate leant forward and Stiles shivered as she ran a hand over his hair softly. It came to rest on his cheek as he continued to swallow down the panic coursing within him. He didn't have the strength to push her away this time.

Kate's voice lowered into something more sinister, more unsettling.

"Don't forget what I said, Stiles. You're not walking out of this one.  _You deserve this_. You just better pray they're telling the truth for  _her_  sake."

Her hand rested there a few seconds longer, and Stiles shook with dread. Kate's head tilted to the side, a small pout turning her lips. Then she straightened and headed towards the door.

 _They have a plan_ , Stiles told himself as Kate exited the building.  _They have a plan_.  _They have a plan._

If only he actually believed it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, I'm sorry! Stydia is on its way!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AAAH I'm sorry this took so long. I've been struggling so hard with this story. Hopefully it will start getting better soon. I'm sorry if the end of this is rushed and abrupt, I just didn't want to make you guys wait any longer! Please review as it's great motivation to update quicker. I love to hear what you think/what you would like to happen. Thank you poppets! (p.s I haven't proof read this so please forgive any mistakes)

"Stiles. Give me your hands. I think I can..."

Awkwardly, Lydia pulled Stiles bound hands into her lap and started scratching at the tape around his wrists using whatever mobility she'd been left with to get him free. She couldn't move her fingers very much, but maybe, just maybe it was enough.

"Lydia, what are you doing?" Stiles voice was a weak rasp.

"What do you think I'm doing?"

"No." said Stiles. "What're you doing  _here_?"

Lydia looked up, and Stiles looked back at her. Beneath the bruises, blood and lethargy, Lydia could see panic in his eyes, panic for her. It was something she hadn't seen in him since the sacrifice, when his father's life had been on the line. Though this time it was subdued by blood loss, hazed over by the disorientation that came with his obvious concussion. It was a look of desperation, fear, trepidation. It made guilt erupt within her.

"Like I said," she muttered. "I heard you."

Lydia set her concentration back upon the tape, clawing with hard determination until eventually she managed to peal it away. With a little of Stiles' help, she stripped the tape from his wrists entirely, having to shake it off onto the floor when it stuck to her own skin instead.

Stiles gazed sleepily down at his hands for a moment. A dazed look was on his face as if he'd never seen them before. Then Lydia watched as he pulled his less responsive arm towards his chest slowly, grimacing and releasing a pained sound with the movement. He held his breath as he leant forward and ripped the tape from his ankles with the hand he could actually use. When he sat back up, the breath juddered out. There seemed to be permanent lines on his forehead now.

Lydia felt him grab her wrists.

"Stiles, you don't have-"

"It's okay."

Soon Lydia was free of her bindings too. The second she had control over her arms, she wanted nothing more than to pull the boy before her into a tight embrace. One that would tell her he was real, that he wasn't going away. And as long as that was true then everything would be okay. But she knew it would only cause him more pain, and she couldn't bare the thought of that.

Confusion struck her when Stiles lifted his hand and gently moved the hair from her face, but then she noticed his eyes worriedly examining her forehead where the beserker had hit her.

"Are you okay?" he asked weakly.

Lydia grasped his hand, pushing it back into his lap.

"Am  _I_  okay?" she blurted out. "Look at you, Stiles. You need a hospital."

"It's not that bad."

"Yes it is."

Lydia couldn't help but notice the singes in his t-shirt surrounding the blackened wound less than an inch away from his lung. That wasn't what frightened her though. It was the once white material now dripping red with his blood that really made her stomach turn with dread.

"I'll get you some water. Pain killers. Bandages. Anything. Just stay here."

Lydia stood up quickly, desperately trying to hold it together.

"Where are you going?"

"Just stay here."

There was a door behind the sofa. Lydia felt Stiles' gaze following her as she hurried over to it before stepping into what appeared to be a small kitchen diner. There was a familiar quality about the room, one of bazaar normality. There were shelves with semi-rusted pots and pans upon them, cupboards sheeted with laminate, a musky silver sink put to shame by a glinting tap that looked to have been recently replaced, a small table with an empty mug left stranded upon it. Was this Kate's home? Surely not. It was strange to think of someone so monstrous residing somewhere so human.

Lydia rooted through drawers and cabinets, even the minuscule fridge, but all she found was an uneven scattering of dishes and cutlery, a few measly scraps of food that looked almost inedible anyway, and some dangerous looking gadgets that she knew nothing about. She could have slapped herself when she remembered that Kate was a .quick healing shape-shifter to whom first aid supplies would provide no use whatsoever. So abandoning her initial mission, she filled a glass with water, frustration tearing at her due to how pathetically ineffective she felt.

As she re-entered the other room, she saw Stiles. He was standing, then swaying, then falling.

"Stiles!"

Lydia pelted towards him, trying to maintain her hold on the water as she hooked her arms under his own to stop him from crashing to the floor. As delicately as she could manage, Lydia steadied him to the ground until his back came to rest against the foot of the couch. He blinked his eyes back into focus, seeming to search aimlessly with them until eventually they landed upon Lydia's face.

"Woah." he uttered.

"I told you to stay where you were."

Lydia perched herself on the carpet next to Stiles' legs. She put her hand against his forehead. Her breath hitched at the sheer heat that radiated from his skin.

"What? What is it?"

She knew the worry on her face was clear as day.

"You have a fever, Stiles."

"So?"

"Don't try to act like you don't know that's a bad sign."

Stiles swallowed and his eyes fluttered shut for a second. When he opened them again they fell upon the glass in Lydia's hand.

"Is that water?" he said, obviously trying to change the subject to something other than his blatant deterioration.

Lydia nodded and proceeded to help him take a sip. Their hands met upon the glass as he drank.

"You find any painkillers?" he said once he'd had enough.

Lydia had stopped crying a while ago, but she had to steady herself as tears threatened to swell again.

"I'm sorry." she said simply, hating how useless she was. Stiles' jaw clenched.

"It's alright." he said. "I doubt they'd do much anyway."

Then, to her right, something caught Lydia's eye.

She reached over and snatched up the bottle of whiskey that sat on the carpet, quickly checking if there was any left.

"There's this?"

Somehow in his state, Stiles still managed to look incredulous.

"Maybe I should at least stay a little lucid for when the time comes to get out of here." he said, though his words were hollow.

"Stiles, you're an idiot if you think you're walking out of here. You can't even stand up. The others will come. Besides, a couple sips won't hurt."

"Sounds like you're trying to get me drunk."

"Sounds like I'm trying to help you. So shut up and drink it."

Stiles looked at the bottle sceptically, but soon he was taking it in his hand and putting it to his lips. He took an uncertain mouthful before briefly coughing and screwing his face up at the taste.

"Oh God." he croaked.

Lydia pursed her lips.

"Here." she said, taking off her cardigan and pushing it against the punctures in his leg. Stiles hissed.

"Sorry, sorry." she sputtered. "We should keep pressure on it. Can you bend it?"

Stiles nodded and obeyed, allowing Lydia to wrap the cotton garment around his thigh once he'd lifted it from the floor. Eyes shut tight, Stiles' head fell back onto the sofa when she made a simple knot and pulled it as tight as she could manage. Thankfully the cardigan wasn't one she was particularly fond of. Once she was done, Stiles breathed out heavily.

"Thank you." he said.

Lydia gave a sad smile, her hand resting on the boy's uninjured leg. Stiles tried to return it, but something cold and heavy seemed to weigh his expression down. She could see it in the taught skin across his tensed jaw; in his eyes where speckles of glassy light pooled, like they'd been subjected to an omen that only Stiles understood.

He took another gulp of the golden brown liquid, and this time he breathed through what Lydia knew must taste like gasoline.

"Do you think they really found him?" Lydia asked. "The benefactor I mean."

"No? Maybe. I don't know." replied Stiles. "Doesn't matter. Kate's gonna kill me anyway."

"No she's not."

"Yes, she is." Stiles voice was stony and grim. "Look, maybe this doesn't have to be so bad. If Kate went to see the others, she probably took one of her beserkers, right?" He stopped to cough, a sick, broken sound. "That means there's only one left. What if I go out there and distract it? Then you might be able to run."

"Are you kidding me? Stiles, it would kill you."

"So?"

"So,  _it would kill you._ "

"But you could escape."

"Firstly, that would never work. And secondly, do you really think I'd want to do that without you?"

"No." said Stiles with a sigh. "That's the problem."

Frustration rose up within Lydia. She huffed, opening her mouth to say something rash and stupid, but then her eyes fell to the carpet.

"But you'd leave without me." she said quietly. Stiles frowned at her, confused.

"You're so willing to sacrifice yourself, aren't you? To leave me behind." she said. "Well I'm sick of being left behind. By you, by  _everyone_. Ever since Allison died. So you're staying with me this time, okay? I don't care if that means we both get torn apart by beserkers, or if Kate comes back and kills us both.  _You're not leaving me_."

Stiles stared at her, and seconds passed, seconds that were filled with an odd kind of tension,

"Okay." he rasped. "I'm not leaving you."

* * *

She arrived at the school forty minutes after the phone call had ended.

Derek, the sheriff and Chris stood in a line. The sky was in that eerie stage between night and morning, where pale grey to the East faded into thick black. They'd been waiting there for what seemed like an eternity when suddenly Derek tensed and turned his head, listening.

"What? What can you hear?" asked the sheriff nervously.

"Stiles' Jeep." replied Derek. "She's here."

Reaching into his pocket, the sheriff turned to Chris before pulling out a pair of handcuffs. Chris held out his hands without pause, and Stiles' father clicked them in place around the other man's wrists.

"You sure about this?" Derek addressed Argent.

The older man just nodded.

When the Jeep pulled into the area with Kate alone at the wheel, the three of them found themselves searching for any other signs of threat. Her beserkers were nowhere to be seen.

Kate stepped out of the vehicle, a large firearm dangling by her side. The sheriff's hands twitched at the sight of her, his face a picture of pure hatred.

Kate walked forward cautiously, until she stood about ten feet away from them. Her hair wavered in the tiny breeze; a chill crawled over the parking lot, across the sheriff's neck.

"I want to talk to him." she said.

"Where's my son?" blurted the sheriff, using every ounce of will power to resist rushing forward and throwing a punch.

"I said I want to talk to him." repeated Kate, her voice unchanging.

But Chris was already walking forward.

"So talk." he said, coming to a standstill in front of the armed woman. His face was indecipherable.

Kate's face was a plethora of emotion. Anger, confusion, distress. She stared at her brother, as if waiting for him to say something more, to explain. But when he failed to do so, she stepped backwards and lifted her gun until Chris was staring directly at its barrel.

"Why?" Kate said bitterly.

Argent's eyes were like stones, his body like marble.

"Tell me  _why_." Kate repeated, shaking the gun slightly. It was action intended to demonstrate assertiveness, but all that really showed through was painful uncertainty.

"You're not going to shoot me Kate." said Argent, unwavering. "I'm the only real family you have left."

Kate's hand was shaking permanently now.

"Right back at you, big brother." she said, her voice something else entirely from the sly song they'd heard through the phone. "Yet you'd pay to have me killed. Your own flesh and blood. Explain that."

"We hunt those who hunt us. That'll never change, Kate. You of all people should understand that."

Kate's eyes went wide for moment, and if it weren't so dark, the beads of moisture forming there might have been visible. She stepped forward, pushing the gun closer, her finger pressing against the trigger. Derek's fingers curled into tense fists at the threat.

"Your own family. You'd kill your own family."

"I've done it before. I can do it again."

"Then why did you get caught." Kate said, more quietly this time. Despite the weapon inches from his head, Argent never once broke eye contact with his sister.

"I gave myself in." he said. "The teenagers you took are innocent. And we protect the innocent at all costs."

" _Innocent?_ " Kate laughed, a cold, injured, spiteful sound. "He killed her, Chris! He killed your daughter. How can you call him anything less than a monster? Let alone  _innocent_."

"You have me." said Chris, ignoring her frantic words. "It's time for you to let them go."

Kate's hand wavered. Her finger twitched. She shook her head.

"No."

The sheriff heaved in a deep, trembling breath. Chris frowned.

"And if you're telling the truth. If you're the  _benefactor_." said Kate. "I'm sure everyone here will thank me for this."

Derek could sense it coming before Kate pulled the trigger. It seemed the sheriff could too. He pulled out his gun and followed as Derek sprinted forward, throwing Kate to the ground so that her weapon unloaded into the air rather than her brother's head. The sound was deafening.

Chris stared, seemingly in shock, but then he was snapping the handcuffs off in a heartbeat and pulling out his own pistol.

Claws tore across Derek's chest and then Kate was crawling out from beneath him, her face transformed into the creature she'd become. Chris lifted his gun with the intention to plant a wolfsbane loaded bullet in the were-jaguars leg, but a dizzying force connected with the side of his head and he crumpled to the ground in semi-consciousness.

That was when the beserker appeared.

It tossed the sheriff to the side with ease. He landed unconscious a few feet away, blood upon his temple. It preceded to throw Derek to the ground, stamping a heavy foot down upon his chest, pinning him there while he struggled relentlessly.

"You lied to me." Kate's words tore through her throat as she clambered to her feet. Chris tried desperately to make his limbs co-operate, but as he looked down at his arms, his vision darkening, it felt like they no longer belonged to him.

"You're not him, are you?" Kate addressed Chris, though her voice was distant and wrong. Somehow her gun was back in her hand and she pointed it at him again, though it was unlikely that she'd use it after her revelation.

"You're not the benefactor." It was hard to tell whether Kate was speaking out of anger or relief.

Suddenly, she stilled.

"Where's Scott?" she said, her eyes quickly surveying the parking lot as if maybe she'd missed him before. And then realisation hit her hard like a fist.

"You shouldn't have done this." she told them coldly. "You know who'll suffer for it."

Chris could only be thankful that the sheriff wasn't awake to hear Kate's promise.

"Make sure they don't follow me." Kate ordered the creature that still had Derek pinioned to the concrete ground. Kate took one last glance at Chris, whose arms buckled once again beneath him, before turning on her heel and stalking back to Stiles' Jeep.

"Derek," heaved Chris. "Now would be a good time to wolf out."

* * *

A short time later, Scott, Kira and Malia arrived at the edge of the forest.

"How long do you think they'll be able to stall her for?" asked Malia as the three of them jogged into the trees. Every step drew them nearer to the perimeter of the two mile radius the trace had shown, nearer to their friends.

"Long enough." replied Scott, though he knew his prediction was tainted with a naive sense of hopefulness. Especially now that Stiles' scent was plucking at his receptors in different ways: fresh and distant, old and near, both dirty with blood and something else. Something that smelled remarkably and terrifyingly, like death.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should probably mention that this fic is occurring at the time Derek is losing his powers but doesn't really realise it yet, I don't know if that makes a difference or not. Please tell me what you would like more/less of!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize greatly if you didn't come for Stydia. But please keep reviewing. I appreciate everything.

"Hey, hey, Stiles. I need you to keep your eyes open, okay? Just keep looking at me. Don't go to sleep. Can you hear me? Stiles?"

It had been over an hour since Kate had left. Though time was blending into something inconceivable and immeasurable, so it could have been much longer. Stiles could feel Lydia's hands on his cheeks, coaxing him back to her, back to cold reality. Her touch felt so close, yet somehow it was in a different world entirely.

"Shouldn't have given me alcohol." he mumbled, though he wasn't entirely sure if the words actually came out. Lydia's short distressed laugh confirmed that they had.

So he could still speak. Things were looking up.

Opening his eyes felt like lifting lead weights, and when he did, he saw that Lydia's cardigan was already stained red upon his leg. He didn't know if his stomach could turn any more than it already had.

"Look at  _me_ , Stiles. Not that."

Stiles dragged his eyes up to the girl who still cradled his face. She was closer now; he could feel her shallow breaths upon his sore skin.

"That's it." she said. "Don't you dare pass out on me."

"M'trying my best."

"I know." said Lydia, and her eyes shone with the moisture beading there. "Why don't you talk to me, Stiles? Just for a little bit, okay? Just talk to me."

"About what?" Stiles heard the crack in his voice, felt it too. Lydia bit the inside of her lip.

"The game." she said. "Tell me about the game. You were great out there tonight, Stiles. I want to hear all about it."

Stiles let out a little cough.

"I was pretty great, wasn't I?" he rasped. Lydia gave a smile that just about reached her eyes.

"I think it helped that you were there."

"What?"

"Just like last time. You were there and we won. It's got to mean something, right?"

Lydia's thumb gently stroked the patch of bruise free skin on his left cheek. It was comforting, though for some reason Stiles could barely feel it. The world was shrouded with something heavy, yet his body felt weightless as air.

"You're beautiful, Lydia."

Lydia's thumb stopped moving.

"You know that though," he murmured, and he couldn't really understand the delirious quality that now touched upon his tone. "I mean, you probably don't know that. But you know that I know it. And you should too. It's not even that fake kind of beautiful. It's the real kind. Am I making sense?"

Lydia looked to be on the crossroads of laughing, crying, and simply rolling her eyes.

"You're right." she said. "I shouldn't have given you alcohol."

Stiles response was cut off by the pain it caused him. He hunched over with a grimace, and the world swayed about him as if he sat upon the deck of a bobbing boat. His eyes fell shut again, though only for a moment.

"Am I dying?" he said. His hazy stupor cut him off from the bluntness of the words.

"What?"

"Because it feels like I'm dying."

He was losing his mind too, and he hadn't nearly drank enough whiskey for that to be the cause of it. Lydia grabbed his hand now, almost too tight.

"You're not dying, Stiles."

"How do you know?"

"Because I just do. Banshee, remember" Her voice was shaking, encasing a lie. "Besides, your dad would murder you if you died."

Stiles inhaled sharply. He knew she hadn't meant to, but Lydia had just struck the panic chord within him.

"No no no, Stiles. He'll be fine.  _You'll_  be fine."

Lydia obviously realised the moment it left her lips.

"My dad, shit, Lydia, my dad."

"Stiles, no."

"What's he going to do, Lydia? What's he going to do?!"

"Please, Stiles. It's okay. You're okay."

But Stiles' breaths had already shortened into hurried, frantic affairs. Tears were falling again, though he couldn't feel them. Lydia was speaking to him, crying, though her voice was a universe away. He was going to die. He was going to die and his dad would be all alone.

The panic was setting in, hard and heavy like cement solidifying in his veins, in his lungs. A hand was clutching at his heart, squeezing.

But Lydia's hands were back on either side of his face then. Her thumbs brushed the tears away tentatively. And subsequently her touch sparked a memory. A memory of a locker room floor and a beautiful girl and pain and panic and horror. He remembered holding his breath and the pain subsiding. Only a little, but then she was there and his father was alive and they survived.

 _They survived_.

So that's what he did now. He held his breath. He closed his eyes, staring into the darkness. And somewhere within its depths, her lips were on his and Scott was rescuing them and Allison was smiling. He held his breath. And it all slipped away.

"Stiles?"

Slowly, carefully, he let go of the darkness, let go of the air trapped in his lungs, and the small part of his brain that still held the capability to think lucidly somehow broke through, if only for a second.

"I'm okay." he answered.

Lydia's eyes were wide. Her lips were parted. Her make up was smudged. He focused on the lines of her face, her tinted lips, her flushed cheeks, her eyelashes, until there was nothing else but he and her. His arms fell limp by his sides once more, his breathing subsided into something almost bearable, and then there was quiet.

It took a few moments for Lydia to realise that her hands were still upon Stiles' face, cool against the pure heat that it emitted. She pulled them away gingerly, watching him in fear.

"Did you kiss me again?" he croaked, because somehow Stiles' memories and reality had blurred into one long string of confusion. His mind wasn't really working any more. Not like it should have been anyway.

"No." said Lydia. "You remembered to hold your breath."

The laugh Stiles let out was short and lost, though he didn't know why he was laughing at all.

"It must've stuck with me somehow." he uttered.

"Yeah," said Lydia. "It must've."

Stiles let his head fall back against the sofa once more, and he'd never felt so tired in his life. He wanted to sleep. He really  _really_  wanted to sleep. But he couldn't. He couldn't leave her. He'd promised.

* * *

Lydia hadn't been able to look at Stiles' beaten form before. Now she couldn't keep her eyes off him. Each of his worn breaths sent a jolt of discomfort to her chest. Each time he closed his eyes, she worried they would not re-open.

She could see, hell, she could  _feel_  the life slipping from him. The longer they sat there, the more blood he lost, the worse his fever became. His words were slurring; his mind was scattering before her eyes, and she didn't know how much of that was down to the alcohol.

The others weren't here. They weren't here and Stiles was dying. She had no clue how long they'd be, if they'd even come at all.

It had been hours now. Stiles had been bleeding out for  _hours_. She needed to get him out. She needed to to get him home.

She needed  _him_.

Lydia knew that moving someone with a head injury was dangerous, if not plain stupid. But she was beginning to think staying put would be even more so. Stiles wasn't going to last much longer, and maybe, just maybe if they made it to the road, someone might drive past, or his Jeep might still be there. Then they could drive to the hospital and she wouldn't have the burden of another dead best friend on her hands.

But what if they both wound up dead. What if they ended up being dragged back by a beserker in worse condition than they'd left. Then she'd have hurt Stiles further for nothing, risked his life for nothing.

Lydia remembered the word's Kate had whispered before she'd taken off on the back of the phone call.

" _Don't forget what I said, Stiles. You're not walking out of this one._ "

What if Kate came back? And she  _would_  come back, there was no doubt about that. Staying would practically be certifying Stiles' death. She couldn't do that. She couldn't just sit here and wait for him to fizzle out, or be killed by some crazy bitch of a were-jaguar.

So that settled it. They were leaving.

Stiles didn't even ask Lydia what she was doing when she stood up and headed for the kitchen in a rush. She skidded over to one of the drawers, the one she remembered discovering a bunch of Kate's gadgets in earlier. Maybe one of them might be of use.

One of them was a serrated flip knife. She grasped it, examined the sharp edge, held onto it, then continued looking. She then picked up a strange looking black rod, and turned the dial on the handle to watch it spark to life. It must have been some kind of were-wolf level taser slash cattle prod. Whatever it was, she was keeping it.

The rest of the drawers content was completely alien to her, so she ran back into the other room, now armed with weapons that provided remarkably little comfort in the wake of what they might be about to face.

"Is that a knife?" questioned Stiles when she came back.

Lydia looked at the blade in her shaking hand, then down to the dying boy on the floor.

"It's for you." she said. "You're going to need something to defend yourself with."

She crouched down, clutched Stiles hand, then folded his fingers around the handle. It took a few seconds for him to realise that holding it required effort on his own part.

"Why?" he said, once the blade was securely in his grasp. Long sentences seemed to be evading him right now.

"Because I'm getting you out of here." Lydia responded. "So I'm going to need you to try and think straight, okay? And I know it's going to be hard, but you're going to have to stand up and walk. The knife's just a precaution."

Stiles didn't answer, and the silence was worrying.

"Can you walk, Stiles?" Lydia pressed.

Stiles face was uncertain.

"I think so." he said, and Lydia knew that deep down he understood. He must have known, even more so than herself, that the time he had left here was limited. Their options were to stay here, wait for the pack and most likely die, or try to make it out of the forest with similar odds. But if they were going to die, as cliché as it seemed, they might as well do it trying.

Stiles was already attempting to stand up on his own accord, so Lydia set to helping him. She hooked his good arm over her shoulders as to not jostle his injury, and tried to take as much of his weight as possible. Despite how slowly they moved, Stiles still swayed into her once they were upright.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"Yeah," said Stiles. "Just dizzy."

"Hold on to me." she said firmly.

They limped toward the door, only to find that Kate had locked it on her way out. Of course she had.

"Dammit." breathed Lydia.

"What now?" uttered Stiles.

But Lydia was already moving. She let go of Stiles, hoping he would be able to support himself, and picked up the chair that Kate had been sitting on. She made her way through to the kitchen, faced the window and threw it with all the strength she could conjure. The glass smashed with a startling shatter as the chair disappeared into the woods beyond.

If the beserker was out there waiting for them, then the sound would have sealed their fate, but the ringing silence that followed suggested that maybe Kate had been bluffing. Maybe she'd taken both of them with her. Hope trickled in from somewhere dark and unexpected.

Lydia tugged down one of the thick curtains and splayed it across the jagged glass that stuck up from the border of the window. It wasn't much, but hopefully it would stop them from being sliced open on the way out.

She turned around to go and get Stiles, but found that he was already there, clinging to the door frame, breathing tattered breaths. He didn't speak, but he understood.

* * *

It took them too long to make it outside. Far too long. By the time both of them were in the night air, Lydia had cut her arm and Stiles had collapsed on the uneven ground, groaning in pain. Climbing through a broken window in the midst of a later stage of hypovolemic shock deemed more difficult than she'd first imagined, not to mention the bullet wound restricting the use of his left arm.

Stiles took back hold of the knife that he'd dropped into the undergrowth besides him, and Lydia dragged him to his feet, apologising profusely.

"You're bleeding." he mumbled.

"So are you." Lydia replied.

With his arm hanging heavily over her shoulders, they began to walk. It was slow progress, sluggish and tiring. And the further they journeyed into the forest, the shorter and more strained Stiles breaths became.

Lydia didn't know where they were going. She didn't know how far away the edge of the wood was, or if they'd even make it there before Stiles passed out from blood loss, beserkers or not. But now that both of them were trailing their metallic scent all over the place, hopefully it would make it easier for the pack to follow it and find them.

"Are we still alive?" murmured Stiles after a good ten minutes of laboured walking. Lydia couldn't quite measure the seriousness of the question.

"For the moment." she replied.

Stiles stumbled a little, but his face remained as if he'd not even noticed. She tugged him upright, somehow managing to keep him going.

"Lydia, I've gotta tell you something-"

"No you don't."

"I do." Said Stiles. "I really do."

They broke through into a small clearing then. The dim light of early morning blended each detail into a grey canvas. Lydia struggled with Stiles' weight, exhaustion seeping in.

"What is it?" she said, though the tone of his voice told her that she really didn't want to hear it.

Stiles came to a stop. He turned, unhooking his arm until he stood facing her, holding himself there.

"You've got to tell Scott that I'm sorry." he said. His voice was borderline a whisper, and it broke Lydia's heart "You've got to tell him that I'm sorry for Allison. I'm sorry for everything. And I need you to tell Malia that she'll be okay, that I  _know_  she'll be okay. And you. I've got to tell you that I-"

"Please don't, Stiles." Lydia interrupted. "You can tell them yourself when we get back. And believe me, I know."

"You know what?"

Lydia would have answered, but she had no time for she was already turning the dial up on her black rod as far as it would go and thrusting it forward, straight into the chest of the beserker that had come out behind Stiles.

She stared in horror as the huge creature stumbled backwards, electricity coursing through its body. Stiles spun around, eyes wide.

As the creature recovered itself, Lydia made to step forward and plant another shock, but then a clawed hand had grabbed her wrist. Another turned the dial down. And then her arm was being bent painfully until the tip of the rod touched her own skin instead. She immediately crumpled to the ground, pain, shock, disorientation raging through her like nothing she'd ever felt.

"Lydia!" she heard Stiles voice echo from somewhere distant. Then came a sickening snap, followed by a strangled cry of agony. It might of been her own, but she was too lost to know.

Then Kate was above her, and Lydia knew that whatever plan the others had contrived hadn't worked. And she remembered what Kate had said. She remembered it all too well.

" _You'd better pray they're telling the truth for her sake._ "


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, I'm really sorry about the brevity of this chapter. I feel like I've forgotten how to write. I hate really short chapters, but I felt like I was leaving it too long again. I never intended to hurt Stiles this much either I don't know what happened. But hey ho I hope you don't mind it. I love you my lovelies.

Lydia felt as if she'd been struck by lightening, her very bones singed. She pushed against the soft ground, trying to make her limbs co-operate, though she didn't have much luck. For several seconds, she was utterly perplexed. And then the clouds started to dissipate in her mind and their situation became all too clear.

Kate would hurt them now. If the pack had lied to her, if they'd tried to trick her, Lydia knew it was only a matter of time before another photo would be sent their way. Though maybe this time she would replace Stiles as its focal point.

She glanced at the boy who was on his front next to her. How he'd got there she did not know. He was already in the process of pushing himself up, though soon the single arm he was using gave out and he collapsed again promptly, narrowly avoiding a face full of dirt on impact as he rolled onto his side. He let out a noise that slightly resembled a sob, and the sound of Stiles' pain seemed to overcome any that she was feeling herself. She attempted to pull herself closer to him, wondering what was wrong with him.

"Get up." said Kate, her voice bitter.

Lydia felt Kate grab her arm and drag her to her feet, and then one of the beserkers clawed expenditures replaced Kate's hand, holding her still, though she still swayed in the wake of the shock she'd received.

"Get up, Stiles."

Stiles was clutching his arm against his chest on the forest floor. Tears were on his face.

"I can't... I can't." he gasped.

Kate looked impatient, angry, untamed.

"Help him." she ordered Lydia.

The moment the creature behind her let go, Lydia dived to her knees, placing one gentle hand on Stiles' bicep and another against his cheek. She watched as he pressed his forehead into the ground, eyes screwed tightly shut.

"What did you do to him?" Lydia questioned, looking from Stiles to Kate frantically.

"I promised him I'd break his legs if he tried to run." Kate responded. "But that wouldn't exactly work in my favour right now, so I broke his arm instead. It's only fair. Now get him up. We have to go."

Lydia stared, horrified. And Stiles coughed into the dirt.

"I can't." he said again. "Lydia."

His eyes were still shut in pain, and Lydia didn't know where to look, what to do.

"Please," she begged. "Please, he doesn't deserve this."

"Funny." said Kate, her eyes cold. "Get him up. Now."

Kate pressed the button on the rod that she now held, allowing the electricity to pulse through it. She pointed it at Lydia, and the threat of another shock was enough to coax her onwards.

"Stiles," she whispered, her voice trembling. "Stiles, you've gotta get up. Please, Stiles."

Her hand was in his hair. stroking. In response to her voice, Stiles opened his eyes. He looked at her, though Lydia wasn't totally sure if he was truly seeing her until they landed upon Kate's weapon. At the sight of it pointing at Lydia, he nodded slowly and shifted, restraining a grunt.

Lydia felt his hand tight upon her shoulder and together they struggled to their feet.

He felt heavier now, more of a burden.

"Move." said Kate, once they were upright. "That way."

She pointed in the direction they'd already been walking.

"Why?" asked Lydia, because surely they should be going back to the house. Kate didn't answer, simply glared at them as if to say,  _are you really questioning me right now?_

Stiles took the first step, and seen as she was his main reason for standing, Lydia followed suit.

* * *

They maintained a similar pace to before, though Lydia found it increasingly difficult to keep Stiles upright. She was already exhausted, and she couldn't begin to imagine how Stiles must be feeling.

The sound of the beserkers heavy footsteps came from a few metres behind, and Lydia couldn't help but wonder where the other one was.

Kate walked close behind them. She had the rod tucked beneath her belt and the same gun she'd had earlier in her hand. Every now and then she would nudge it into Lydia's back if they slowed too much. Though even with the added incentive, it was still hard to keep the pace Kate desired.

She had no idea how long they'd been walking for, though soon the cold was biting at her fingers and feet. She shivered. Her body ached. And then suddenly, Stiles arm was slipping from her shoulders and she scrambled to support him as he fell.

It was a momentary loss of consciousness on his part, and he came back around before he hit the ground. He landed with a quiet thud on his back, and Lydia fell to her knees next to him. He blinked at her in confusion.

"Lydia?" he mumbled.

"What are you doing?" said Kate. Her voice was alarmed. "Get up. Keep walking."

"He can't walk any more." said Lydia.

"Yes he can."

"Please, we have to rest."

Stiles dragged himself up into a sitting position, still pressing his broken arm tight against his chest.

"I'm okay." he uttered. "I'm alright."

"So get up." repeated Kate, darker this time.

"No." said Lydia. And then she stumbled to her feet and turned to face Kate. She stood tall, though her hands still shook. Something told her that this was no time for resiliency, but a strange feeling was running through her, something close to anger. "We have to rest." she repeated, her voice adamant. "And if you're not going to let us do that, then you might as well just kill us already."

Kate looked as if she was about to laugh. But not in spite. Not in mockery. Somewhere inside, and it wasn't even that well hidden, she was afraid.

"Princess," she said, stepping forward, raising her gun slightly. "If your pathetic little friends had just done what they were told, none of us would even be in this position right now. It's their fault you have to do this, not mine. Either way, I don't hold much sympathy for murderers, so shut up and keep walking."

 _Friends?_  It was only then that Lydia noticed the tear in the arm of Kate's jacket, the blood that peeped through. There was a bruise on her face too, both of which were new injuries. Or at least they hadn't been there before she'd left to see Derek. There was something Kate hadn't told them. Lydia could see that now.

Their friends were coming. That was why Kate was so afraid. That was why she was so desperate to leave. Lydia began to see the hinges coming loose in Kate's plan, in her entire facade. Kate didn't know what she was doing. She was a woman running solely on fear and rage and grief. That meant she could be undone. All Lydia had to do was stall.

"I won't." she said, taking a deep breath. "We're not going to keep walking. We're staying here."

"Lydia, don't." came Stiles weak, slightly delirious voice from the ground.

"You won't?" Kate responded, eyebrows raised.

Lydia just stood still, unwavering. She expected nothing less than the blow Kate planted to her head with the butt of her gun. She tried to stay on her feet, but the pain and whiteness that exploded in her skull sent her back to her knees.

Stiles yelled out something indecipherable in her few seconds of bewilderment. She was expecting Kate to say something. To drag her back to her feet. Tell her to just  _walk_. Or at least strike another blow. But when she shook herself into clarity, Kate was no longer looking at her. She'd gone still, her eyes examining their surroundings, peering into the grayness.

Suddenly, Kate's head snapped round, like a rabbit sensing a predator. Her eyes widened, panic seeping into her face.

Someone was closing in, and Kate knew it.

* * *

"Hold her."

Lydia screeched and her hand went up as a clawed hand of the beserker tugged painfully at her hair, dragging her back to her feet.

She watched as Kate lifted Stiles from his place on the ground. The boy whimpered, attempting to support his own weight when Kate wrapped a secure arm around his throat. His back was pressed up against her now, and his knees buckled as he tried not to choke.

Kate raised her gun and fired it twice into the sky. Two huge bangs rang out, loud enough for the whole forest to hear, making Lydia jump.

"It's too late, Scott!" Kate yelled, and Lydia immediately stopped struggling at the mention of their friends name. "You're too late! Come any closer and I'll kill him."

There was something mad in Kate's voice, something almost terrified. Silence came in return, with only the resonating sound of the gunshots filling the void of greyness about them. Then, came the sharp snap of a twig somewhere nearby, or at least that's what Lydia thought she'd heard.

"Scott?" she whispered hopefully.

But when she looked, there was nothing there. Around them, the trees stretched into something unfathomable and impenetrable. There was another tiny snap, this time unmistakable, and Kate's head swung round, eyes surveying the tree line meticulously.

"Did you hear me, Scott?" she uttered. "Listen to my heartbeat. You know I'm not lying. You're too late. So leave now. Find the benefactor. And maybe I won't have to kill him and my beserker won't have to kill you."

Silence.

"Scott," gasped Stiles. "If you're out there, don't listen. She's gonna kill me anyway. Just save Ly-"

But Kate tightened her hold around Stiles' throat, strangling the words into a premature stop. In some sick way Lydia thought  _good_ , because she was about to tell him to shut up herself. Kate's threats were real. Too real. And Stiles was here, so ready to break his promise to her. To leave her.

"Just save Lydia, huh?" said Kate, half to Stiles, half to whoever was standing in the darkness. Then she lowered her voice to a whisper, one Lydia could barely hear. "You love her, don't you?" Stiles clawed at Kate's arm, trying to loosen her grip. "You murdered someone that  _I_  loved, Stiles. She's dead. Do you think you could love a dead girl?"

Stiles choked, clawed, thrashed, for he knew what was coming. But Kate was already lifting her gun to point it at Lydia. Lydia's mind went blank. Her hand loosened upon the beserker's. Her breath caught in her throat. Kate's finger pushed against the trigger and Lydia waited for the final, silencing bang.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sorry. I am evil.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this has taken so long. I've had major writer's block. My brain just isn't working. But I hope it's okay.

The scent of Stiles' blood was too strong now. It was frankly sickening, but Scott, Malia and Kira chased it through the forest anyway, and with each step they knew they were getting closer. They'd seen Lydia's abandoned car at the edge of the forest, which only confirmed their hopes.

As they ran, Malia maintained a look of intense concentration, though Scott knew the fear she was really feeling. Kira had her Katana on her back, ready to pull it out at the first sign of trouble.

It was Lydia's voice that Scott heard first. Strong, wilful, angry.

He looked across to Malia, who nodded to show she'd heard it too.

All three of them immediately began sprinting towards the sound, and Scott didn't register the way Kira trailed behind, unable to keep up. He was too full of hope. Too ready to rescue.

But Kate's voice came then. His stomach dropped to the ground at the realisation that they were too late.

The plan to lure her away hadn't worked. He came to an abrupt halt at the sound of her serious tone. Malia skidded to a stop next to him. They were close. Very close. Scott caught a glimpse of Lydia's red hair through the trees and flung himself behind one of the thick trunks for cover, pressing his back to the rough bark. He glared at Malia, who quickly understood and copied him. Kira caught the gist as soon as she arrived, panting for breath.

Suddenly there was Stiles' voice, a hoarse and pain infused croak, making Scott feel ill. He swallowed his rage, trying to suppress the sick feeling rising within him.

He didn't know what to do. But it was too late to go back now. Scott knew that leaving Stiles' rescue for another time would be just as good as killing him.

He noticed a familiar scent then, amidst the fear and blood. It was a beserker, though he shouldn't have been surprised. He chose to ignore it for now, tuning in his hearing, listening for what was to come.

"You won't?" came Kate's questioning voice. And then suddenly the sound of metal crashing against skin echoed out, then the thud of someone's body hitting the ground. It was Malia that reacted first, claws breaching fingertips and fangs slipping into sight. She moved, ready to attack, and the uneven earth crunched beneath her feet.

" _Malia, stop!_ " whispered Scott urgently. Malia obeyed reluctantly, but he already knew their cover was blown by the silence that suddenly enveloped their senses. Malia shifted, and a tiny but sharp snap came from where she stood, a fog horn amongst the quiet. It was all Kate needed to zone in on their heartbeats, their breathing, their scents, too near to go unnoticed.

"Hold her." ordered Kate, a command obviously directed at her beserker.

There was shuffling, Lydia's cry, then pained noises that Scott knew to be Stiles. He noticed Malia's hands clench into tight fists. Claws drew blood from her palms.

He couldn't stay like this any longer. He had to see.

Scott leant to the right a little, peeking out from behind the tree trunk and focusing his vision until all was visible.

Kate's arm was around Stiles' throat and a gun was in her hand. The beserker had Lydia by the hair. Kate's head was turning, her eyes searching as if she couldn't pinpoint their exact whereabouts. Too many heartbeats. Not enough experience.

She fired the gun. Once. Twice. Each shot seemed bitterly symbolic of the futures his two closest friends could soon be facing.

"It's too late, Scott!" she shouted, and Scott swallowed anxiously. He saw Stiles' eyes widen a little and Lydia grow stiller. "You're too late! Come any closer and I'll kill him."

Scott glanced at Kira, who looked as lost as he felt. Malia on the other hand looked like she was about to set alight with fury.

None of them moved closer. But they didn't move further away either.

"Did you hear me, Scott? Listen to my heartbeat. You know I'm not lying. You're too late. So leave now. Find the benefactor. And maybe I won't have to kill him and my beserker won't have to kill you."

Scott didn't need to listen to Kate's heartbeat to know she was telling the truth. He could hear in the woman's voice how desperate she was. She knew that if she killed them, she'd have nothing left to bargain with. But that didn't seem to matter to her now. If she was going down, she was hell bent on taking Stiles with her.

Scott was beginning to panic. If he left, his best friend would die. If he stayed, chances were that both of them would. Neither option sat very well with him.

"Scott." Stiles' voice was a rasp. ""If you're out there, don't listen. She's gonna kill me anyway. Just save Ly-"

When Kate cut Stiles off, choking him, it looked like Malia might burst. Though Scott didn't react much better.

"Just save Lydia, huh?" said Kate. And then much much quieter: "You love her, don't you? You murdered someone that  _I_  loved, Stiles. She's dead. Do you think you could love a dead girl?"

Scott couldn't understand why he didn't see it coming.

Kate raised her gun. And there should have been a bang. He should have seen Lydia's eyes, wide and vacant in death.

But instead came a scream. Kate's scream. And Scott watched as Stiles dropped to the ground, hand bloody from where he'd thrust a knife, previously tucked into the waste line of his shorts, deep into Kate's side.

Kate stumbled backwards, and Scott needed nothing else. Nor did Malia. Nor did Kira. They were already attacking.

* * *

_The knife's just a precaution,_ Lydia had said.  _Some precaution_.

Stiles was trying to piece together what was happening, but his mind wouldn't process it. Everything was beginning to feel like a violent dream where everything hurt and nothing made sense.

But one thing that did was Lydia. The banshee, still so beautiful.

He'd already accepted that his time was up. But he couldn't leave her. And he couldn't let her die either.

Stiles gulped down air that wouldn't come. He wrapped his hands around Kate's arm and pulled, and the pain of broken bones and bullet wounds seemed irrelevant.

It was only when Kate raised her gun that he remembered it, there, pressing into his hip, what seemed like his last hope.

She cried out when he pushed the serrated blade backwards without aim, so it must have hit a mark. He didn't think to brace his legs when she released him, or couldn't think to, and his mind went white as the impact jolted his useless arm.

He could feel the change around him, hear the roars of were-creatures, of his friends. And for a second he couldn't help thinking that he'd killed them all. They weren't just up against Kate. They were up against a beserker. A killing machine.

Lydia's hands turned the thoughts to smoke. They were pulling him away, clutching his arms, and it hurt like hell, so he pushed with his legs to help and soon his back was against a tree. Lydia clutched his hand tightly, and her eyes flashed from Stiles to the fight unfolding behind her and back again. Fear was all over her.

It was like a movie reel playing out before him, as if their was a barrier between two different worlds. Stiles watched as Malia and Kira tried to hold off the beserker, and it seemed like they were losing. He wanted to tell them to run. He wanted to tell Malia that she could stop protecting him now. That he didn't deserve it. But the words wouldn't come.

And then there was his best friend. He was on top of someone, clawing and punching. His eyes were red. And his face was less human than even a werewolf's should be. His hands came back bloody, but he kept going, hitting, clawing. Stiles wanted to tell him to stop, because it wasn't him, he wasn't a killer, but again the signal wouldn't reach his lips.

"Scott!" came Malia's voice, and Stiles panicked as she was thrown to the ground.

Scott finally halted in his rage filled attack, only to direct his fury elsewhere. It all seemed to happen in a heartbeat. One second the beserker was alive. And the next, its large body was lying still on the ground next to another smaller figure, equally unmoving. Scott stood still now, breathing hard, and Stiles had never seen him look so enraged, so dangerous, so  _monstrous_.

" _Scott..._ "

* * *

It was Stiles' voice, albeit a whisper, that snapped Scott out of it, that forced him to realise himself. But he had no time to think of the blood on his hands, or the fragments of bone strewn amongst the undergrowth. Stiles was all that mattered now.

The wolf in him settled as he raced over to his best friend. Kira did the same, shortly followed by Malia who dragged herself up from the ground, already healing. Lydia looked at him, and she opened her mouth to speak, but something made her stop.

"Stiles..." he and Malia spoke simultaneously.

Stiles didn't respond. His eyes were fixed on Kate's lifeless body. And Scott had to force himself not to follow his friends gaze, for he knew that he would see blood and bone and empty eyes. And knowing that  _he'd_  done that, knowing that he was even capable of doing that: it was too much. Stiles seemed to be in disbelief, but soon he was looking up at him, lost and confused.

"Scott?" he rasped again. Scott found himself standing still, staring, unable to comprehend the state his brother was in. Though Malia rushed forward and dropped to her knees while Lydia maintained a vice-like grip on his hand. When Malia reached him, she paused to just take him in, and then she smiled because he was alive and she could hold him again. Though of course she didn't. She seemed afraid to even touch him.

"Guys, I'm okay." Stiles rasped in response to the looks he was being given.

"You've been shot, Stiles." said Scott, and his voice cracked with the words.

"I know. Pretty cool, huh?"

Scott didn't find that funny. Not even in the slightest. Though he was pretty sure Stiles didn't either. And then the smell hit him again. Blood. So much of it. And he knew it wasn't over yet.

"We have to get you out of here." he said, finally finding the ability to move again. He stepped forward, and Lydia reluctantly let go of his hand, allowing Scott to wrap an arm around his torso and carefully lift him up. Scott did everything he could to avoid glancing at the bodies on the ground. They meant nothing, not when his best friend might be joining them soon if they didn't act fast.

"He's gonna be okay, right?" said Malia. Lydia and Scott exchanged a look full of fear and uncertainty. Malia saw it happen, and panic wrote itself across her face. "Guys, he's gonna be okay." Her question became a frantic statement. "Scott? Scott, stop it. Stop looking like that. Stiles, tell me you're gonna be okay."

"I'm gonna be okay."

It really didn't look or sound that way though, as his eyes were half closed, and he wasn't really supporting his own weight any more. Malia went to grab his other arm but Lydia stopped her.

"It's broken."

Malia's outstretched fingers curled up and her bottom lip trembled. Scott held his breath for a second. Stiles didn't deserve this. It wasn't fair.

"How far is the edge of the forest?" asked Lydia.

"Not far." said Kira. "Less than half a mile, I think."

Scott knew that  _not far_  might not be close enough. Not for Stiles. But there was nothing they could do about that now. They had to start walking.

But then he felt Stiles' body go slack next to him. The boy's eyes fell shut. And then they were back on the ground again.

"Stiles!"

He was still breathing. But only just.

Lydia grabbed Scott's shoulder, and he turned to her. Fresh tears were falling from her eyes, and Scott knew it was because she could feel it. She could feel it coming. His death. It was her burden as much as it was Stiles'.

"Scott," she said, her voice shaking. "You have to carry him."

Scott nodded. He proceeded to hook an arm under Stiles' back and the other beneath his legs, lifting his lax body from the ground relatively easily.

"What about the bodies?" asked Kira, suddenly.

"What about them?" responded Malia, and Kira quickly learnt how unimportant they seemed in retrospect.

"Come on." said Scott. "Your car's this way. Someone call his dad."

They all followed him without pause, and Malia pulled out her phone. None of them even knew if the sheriff was still alive, or Derek, or Chris. Scott supposed they were about to find out.

* * *

They reached Lydia's car first, and the sight of it made her heart soar with relief. They'd been half running the entire distance, and she could have collapsed by the time they reached the road. Her legs ached and the air stung her throat.

The keys were still in the ignition where she'd left them. Her phone was still on the front seat. She looked to Scott, whose face was grey with exhaustion, and it was only then that she realised he'd been leaching Stiles' pain the whole way.

Malia ran around to the other side of the car and climbed in so that when they opened the door and carefully manoeuvred Stiles inside, she could hold him up. He still slumped in the seat though, and his eyelids fluttered with the movement. Though thankfully, the jostling of his broken arm didn't strike pain across his face thanks to Scott.

The werewolf hadn't let go yet. He leant forward, holding onto Stiles. Black veins still meandered along his skin and perspiration coated his creased forehead.

Stiles stirred, and a breath, slightly more powerful than before, came to his lips.

"Lydia..." his voice was somewhat pleading, but not all there. Lydia looked at Malia hesitantly, but the coyote simply frowned with impatience.

"What are you waiting for?" she said. "He wants you. Get in."

Scott seemed to hold on a little tighter, reluctant to let go. Lydia placed her hand on his arm, trying to tell him that  _it was okay,_ that he'd taken enough. Scott's jaw was set, but finally he released his grip.

Lydia slid onto the back seat so that she and Malia sandwiched Stiles. She grabbed onto his hand and wove their fingers together firmly. His skin no longer felt warm in fever. Instead it felt deadly cold. Not only that, Lydia noticed that all colour had drained from his lips. It frightened her immeasurably.

"Lydia..." Stiles murmured again, turning his head to her. His eyes were open but they didn't really see her, so Lydia squeezed a little tighter.

"I'm here, Stiles."

Stiles seemed to relax again at the sound of her voice. His body sank once more into the leather seat. Scott stared at his brother, only for a second, looking helpless, but then he sprinted to the drivers side, getting in swiftly. Kira took the passenger seat, and it was mere moments before they were driving. Scott didn't hold up on the accelerator.

"My Jeep..." said Stiles, moving to sit up and failing miserably. He certainly had his priorities straight, thought Lydia. Though she was just relieved he was still responsive, even if it only came in bursts.

Her relief was short lived, for when she looked in the rear-view mirror at Scott's face, she could see focus, determination, slowly crumbling away to terror. His knuckles were white where his hands gripped the wheel. She knew he could hear Stiles' increasingly sluggish heartbeat, the same way she could feel him slowly slipping away from her. It meant nothing though.  _He wasn't going to die_ , she reassured herself with adamancy. Her scream had been for Kate. No one else.

Stiles slipped under again, and when he came back around five minutes later, all he murmured was "Where's my dad?" as if he'd woken from a nightmare in which something terrible had happened and he had to make sure it wasn't real.

Lydia could have broken in half.

"He's fine, Stiles." said Scott, and both she and Malia glanced at him with uncertainty. Stiles' face was contorting again now as the effects of Scott's siphoning quickly gave way to that of his injuries.

"How do you know?" His voice was strained and distant.

The truth was, they didn't. No one was answering their calls, and the absence of a beserker didn't make that fact any easier to swallow.

"Guys, how do you know?" Stiles mumble grew more solid when he received no answer from them. Lydia swallowed. She didn't know what to say. None of them did.

But then the sound of Scott's phone ringing saved them, at least for a moment. Scott pulled it from his back pocket, glanced at the screen, then passed it back to Lydia quickly.

"It's Derek." he said.

Lydia answered the call immediately.

"Derek?"

But to her surprise, it was the sheriff's voice that replied. Something within her let out a sigh of thankfulness.

"Lydia? They found you?" he said frantically. "Where's Stiles? Let me speak to Stiles."

"He's here, Sheriff." Lydia assured. "We tried to call you earlier. You didn't answer."

"Just please, let me speak to my son."

"Dad." Stiles said simply, as if he were already speaking through the phone, because maybe he thought he was. "Dad."

"He's not really in a state to talk right now." said Lydia, wanting to save the sheriff the pain of hearing his son so broken. "But we'll be at the hospital soon. Meet us there."

"No hospital." muttered Stiles. "Can't afford it."

"That's Stiles. I can hear him." said the Sheriff. "Lydia, tell me he's alright."

"No hospital." Stiles said again, as if he'd forgotten the little fact that he was minutes away from bleeding to death. Though considering his current mental state, he probably had.

"I'm afraid I'd be lying if I told you that." said Lydia, pulling Stiles' hand closer to her, attempting to comfort herself. "But he will be. I promise." She could hear the doubt in her voice clear as day.

"Okay." said Stiles' father. And Lydia could tell he was trying to calm himself. "Alright. Just, tell Scott, tell everyone, whatever you do, do not listen to a single word my son says."

Lydia stared at the boy to her right, the boy who was already slipping back under to somewhere a hell of a lot more peaceful than this. His eyelids were drooping again, and as he slid, there was a swelling in her throat and chest, something close to pain. She knew what it meant. It was everything she hated. But there was no way she was letting it take another person she loved. Not him. Not Stiles.

"Wasn't planning on it." she said to the sheriff before hanging up. And then, "Scott, you better drive faster."

They were running out of time. And fast.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> True alpha Scott!!!1!!!!!!1111! I feel like the rescue was a little anti-climactic, so I apologise for that. I'm really struggling to write lately. And I know Scott's never killed anyone before, but I though if he was going to, it would be for Stiles. Thank you for everything that you do though. and keep reviewing my lovelies.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has taken months to update, and I'm so sorry for that. It's so short as well and that's half the reason it took so long. I thought because I'd already taken so long the chapter should be longer, but it just wasn't happening. So here it is. I hope it's okay mi darlings.

Malia watched as Lydia clutched on to Stiles, feeling helpless.

She knew Stiles was dying. She could smell death lingering on him, waiting to take hold. But despite her worry for him, despite a curling in her stomach that she didn't understand, she still wished that she was the one he wanted. She wished her touch could make him feel safe like Lydia's did. She wished she could do more.

She wanted to hold him, to put her head on his shoulder and bring him close, to weave her fingers with his, but as his body slumped down, she felt afraid to lay a hand on him or get too close. She wasn't gentle. She wasn't what he needed. Not like Lydia. She would only hurt him more.

She watched the way Lydia worried. She watched her eyes glance over Stiles every now and then, only to fall back onto nothing in particular, her tear filled gaze seemingly absent. But then the banshee's eyes flashed to the cardigan covered wound on Stiles' leg which was still leaking red.

"Can you keep pressure on it?"

Her eyes levelled with Malia's, and the were-coyote nodded obediently. Maybe Lydia had sensed her desire to do something. She put her hands to his slack leg and pressed. Stiles stirred a little. His eyebrows turned inward and his hand tightened slightly around Lydia's, but that was it.

"Why hasn't it stopped bleeding?" Malia asked.

Lydia's fingers twitched. Her expression was cold.

"I don't know." she replied seriously. Malia sensed a lie there, though something told her not to press any further.

"We're almost there." said Scott, glancing back. Urgent yet restrained terror was on his face.

Malia felt hope rise within her at the words. Buildings flashed by the window. It felt good to have the boy she cared about back in the realm of civilisation. It was where he belonged.

"Come on, Stiles." she said, smiling down at him. "You're gonna be okay."

But then Stiles' grip on Lydia fell loose and both their eyes widened in fear.

"Stiles?"

Malia felt her stomach plummet, for when she listened for the sound of his breath, it didn't come. Stiles wasn't breathing. Not even a little. His face was entirely absent. His body utterly still.

Lydia looked up at her, saw the panic on her face, then embodied it.

"No no no no." she uttered frantically, her hands going to Stiles' cheeks.

"Scott, go faster!" Malia screeched, even though she knew Scott was already driving as fast as he could.

She couldn't move. Malia could only watch, unable to comprehend what was happening.

Lydia held his face, leaning over him, shaking him.

"Stiles, wake up." she said around a sob. "Wake up."

Stiles didn't respond, and Malia could barely hear his heartbeat any more. It was a weak, fluttering sound, barely emitting life. Scott could obviously hear the same thing for his claws were splitting the leather of Lydia's steering wheel.

"Stiles.  _Stiles!_ " Lydia repeated his name over and over, willing him to open his eyes, to breathe,  _anything_. Her palms cupped his ghostly face, a face that remained empty and terrifyingly lifeless.

"Stiles, don't do this." Lydia begged. "Breathe. Just breathe. Please. Please wake up. You promised, Stiles. You  _promised._ "

Her tears fell freely. The horror at the thought of losing this boy was all over her. Her shaking hands moved across his body, as if her touch might somehow bring him back. Malia looked up when the car came to an abrupt stop. They were at the hospital. But it was too late. Surely it was too late.

Scott dived out of the car, screaming for Stiles' life, for any kind of help.

Lydia hadn't glanced away once from the boy laid beside her, whose eyes were closed in what Malia wished was sleep. The banshee's voice became a whisper, a broken plea.

"Don't leave me." she said, her face inches from his. "Please don't leave me. I found you. I was supposed to save you. You're not supposed to die. Just wake up."

Suddenly the door swung open beside Malia and there appeared the sheriff. His eyes immediately went to Stiles' limp form.

"Stiles?"

It took a second for him to notice Lydia's frightened tears and Malia's rigid shock. But when he did, his face contorted into something slightly terrifying.

"No." he said quietly. Then he was stumbling backwards.

" _Somebody help!_ " He yelled madly at nothing. " _Somebody help my son!_ "

Lydia and Malia were soon pulled from the car by paramedics, and it wasn't long before Stiles' body was being unloaded onto a stretcher and carried away.

* * *

Scott shoved his way past the people trying to ask him questions, thoughtlessly leaving Kira to take the brunt of it as he rushed into the hospital. Lydia and Malia followed closely behind him. He chased the trail of his best friend, ignoring the voices calling after him until eventually he reached the door leading into the room Stiles had been rushed to. There were people speaking, stern and focused. The phrase  _head trauma_  sent a particularly strong jolt to Scott's chest, and then the word  _shock_ was said in a particularly urgent manner.

Amidst it all, he tried to pick out the one sound he needed to hear more than anything, but it wasn't there.

No.  _No no no no_.

"Scott?" Lydia said in response to the look on his face. She sounded terrified.

"His heart. It's not beating." Scott could barely get the words out.

Lydia planted her back against the wall and slid down to the floor slowly, looking dazed. The banshee gazed into nothing as if every part of herself had fallen into an inescapable abyss, detaching her from reality. Malia stared at the door behind which Stiles lay, then all of a sudden she was running, running away and out of sight.

Scott didn't call after her. He couldn't.

A loud noise inside the room struck Scott's ears and he jumped. A defibrillator. It should have brought with it the consistent and comforting beeping of a heart monitor. It should have brought life. But none of that came.

And then Scott felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to find his mom standing there. Tears were in her eyes.

" _Mom_." The word came out a sob as Scott latched onto her and buried his head in her shoulder. He curled his fingers into the thin material of her scrubs, and when another jolt of the defibrillator once again brought nothing in return, he thought he might never let go.

Stiles was dead. Dead. It seemed utterly implausible to him.  _Impossible_.

Scott felt as if a part of him had been brutally ripped out. A razor sharp hollowness clawed at him from within and he didn't know how to handle it. It was too greater pain.

His brother was gone. Stile was gone. But it couldn't be true.

He was imagining it when the defibrillator sounded one last time. He was imagining it when the beeping started up, solid and strong. He was imagining it when he heard the distinctive, familiar sound of his best friends heartbeat, oh so alive.

It took him several seconds to realise that it wasn't all in his head and not just some twisted form of denial. No, it was really there, the sound of his heart, and it was the best thing he'd ever heard.

He stilled in his mother's arms, taking a trembling breath in uncertain relief. His mom must have considered the movement to mean something else, because when she pulled away, her face was a picture of worry and sadness.

"He's not..." she said, seemingly in shock.

Scott immediately shook his head to assure her that her assumptions were wrong, just as his had been. And then he pulled her back into his embrace, just as tight as before.

Right now, his mother's grasp was the only comforting place in the universe.

* * *

Lydia had almost screamed.

Almost.

Stiles had been dead. Only for a few moments. But she'd felt it. It was the same feeling that had ripped through her when Alison had passed. Except it was worse, as if some long string that connected her to him, a part of her, was being stretched to breaking point. But somehow she'd managed to hold it back. She'd forced the scream deep down within herself, keeping it there as it relentlessly tore her up from the inside out. And then it was gone. Gone as if it had never been there at all.

Lydia breathed, because all of a sudden such a thing was was possible again. And it was then that she realised just how much Stiles meant; the vital part he played in her sanity; how much she loved him. Only when she'd been through this hell, only when she'd felt with her own soul the life leave him did it become clear.

And none of it really mattered because he was still alive. He was still alive and that was everything.

"Lydia, where's Lydia?"

It wasn't the sound of her name but the sight of a panicked sheriff rushing down the hallway towards them that snatched her from her thoughts. It was a hallway that was no doubt out of bounds, but despite that, this was the first authoritative figure they'd seen, or paid attention to, since exiting the car.

"Lydia." To her surprise, he laid his focus on her when he reached them, staring down at her with red rimmed eyes."On the phone you said he would be okay. That's what you said." Lydia couldn't tell whether the man was angry or terrified, or perhaps both. "You didn't even let me talk to him. I didn't even get to tell him I loved him, and now... just tell me he's going to wake up from this. Please say he'll wake up. If he doesn't..."

The sheriff covered his mouth with his hand, unable to continue. Lydia's heart ached for him.

"Hey," Melissa stepped towards him and placed a caring hand on his shoulder. "They've done everything they can."

The sheriff's hand moved to his hair, then to his neck. He was breathing hard,barely holding on to control.

"I can't feel it any more." said Lydia rather out of the blue. All three of them looked down at her in confusion. The sheriff's frown deepened.

"Feel what?" he said.

Lydia felt a little addled, unable to move.

"Death." she replied simply.

"Death?" Scott stepped forward. "What does that mean?"

Lydia was searching within herself for the feeling she'd grown so accustomed to over the last few hours. But it wasn't there. It was as if a weight had been lifted from her, like her blood was running at its normal pace again.

"Lydia, what does it mean?" It was the sheriff that spoke now, more forceful than Scott. Lydia took a deep breath. She hesitated. She didn't want to give them false hope, only to have it crushed later on. She didn't want to do that to the sheriff, to Scott, to herself. But at the same time she needed it like air. Because hope was all they had.

"I think it means he's going to be okay."

She found herself smiling. Because suddenly it was so much more than hope. She couldn't feel death because there was only life. And it felt so clear. Stiles was on the other side of that door and he was breathing and his heart was beating and soon he would open his eyes.

"He's going to be okay."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn't the last chapter. But I don't know how long I'll take to update. I'm strugglin, so sorry:((


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I wrote half of this and then accidentally deleted it so had to do it again and it took forever. But I hope you like it. It was going

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote half of this and then accidentally deleted it so had to do it again and it took forever. But I hope you like it. It was going to be longer and the final chapter but I thought I shouldn't leave you waiting any more. So here it is! Enjoy and comment! All your lovely ones so far are so uplifting so thank you!

Scott was hit with a rush of sheer relief at Lydia's words. Lydia was smiling, almost deliriously, though he didn't blame her. He found himself smiling too. His friend was alive and in that moment nothing else mattered.

"Are you sure?" Melissa asked, a little incredulous.

"I'm sure." Lydia replied.

"I have no idea how this whole banshee thing works," said the Sheriff, "but if you say my son's going to be okay, I'm going to believe you for my own sanity's sake."

Scott watched Lydia put her hands to the ground to push herself up from the floor.

"We have to tell the others." she said. "We have to tell Malia."

Slowly she stood, though Scott immediately sensed that something was off.

The second Lydia was upright, her face fell slack and her legs gave in. Scott rushed forward to catch her, and she landed in his arms. skin as pale as snow.

"Lydia?" Scott shook her gently.

"I'm okay." she breathed. "I didn't scream."

She pushed against him in an attempt to support herself only to have him catch her uncooperative body once more.

"Hey. Hey, Lydia?"

The banshee's eyelids fluttered and she let out a little sound of breathy discomfort.

"Mom, what's wrong with her?"

"Follow me." said Melissa with a frown. "I'll take you to somewhere she can lie down."

"What about Stiles?" said Scott.

Melissa's eyes were full of kindness and sympathy.

"Sweetie, you saved his life. There's nothing more you can do for him. Now come on."

Lydia was heavy on her feet. Scott had to support her as they followed his mother to a tiny vacant appointment room within which was a lone bed and a desk. The sheriff didn't join them, but Scott understood that completely. The man needed to be as close to his son as possible right now.

Scott sat Lydia down on the hospital bed. She immediately slumped onto her back and her head landed against the soft pillow. As he let go, Scott saw red transfer to her clothing from his hands. He looked down to find them covered in blood. Flecks of it were spattered across his forearms, his chest. He hadn't even noticed it.  _How had he not noticed it?_  And suddenly an image of Kate was bursting into his head, bloodied and broken, lying still on the forest floor. Scott felt dizzy. He wanted to clean himself, to scrub the top layer of his skin away, anywhere the blood had touched, and hopefully with it the memory of what he'd done as well.

"Lydia, honey." said Melissa, and suddenly he'd snapped out of it. All his focus turned to the girl upon the bed. He worried for the way her eyelids drooped. Her skin had an odd grey tinge to it. He forced the image of Kate away and actively shrunk the blood on his hands to something insignificant and irrelevant.

"Don't go to sleep just yet." Melissa said to Lydia. "Can you tell me how you feel?"

Her hand stroked Lydia's hair line as she spoke.

"I didn't scream." said Lydia again, her voice weak. Scott couldn't tell if she was entirely in her right mind.

"Lydia, what do you mean _you didn't scream_?"

"He was dead." Lydia uttered. "I was supposed to scream. But I didn't. I stopped it."

"What?" said Scott.

"Don't make me say it again."

It began to click in Scott's head. Melissa's too.

"Are you saying Stiles was supposed to die?"

Lydia nodded.

"I think I knew it all along." she said, though her voice was growing more tired by the second. "But I couldn't let it happen. And I didn't."

She smiled briefly at her achievement before her expression returned to one of utter exhaustion.

"Have you ever saved someone like this before?" asked Melissa. Lydia didn't reply, so she turned to Scott and his expression of cluelessness gave her the answer she needed.

Scott's eyebrows knitted together. Lydia had literally held back death for Stiles. And something like that was bound to have consequences. Scott just worried how severe those might be.

"I hope you don't mind if I take your blood pressure?" Melissa addressed Lydia in concern.

Lydia shook her head no. Melissa acquired a sphygmometer from one of the drawers beneath the desk and set about wrapping it around Lydia's upper arm.

"Scott, I think you better go and talk to the sheriff about how you're going to explain all this to the other authorities." said Melissa, not really looking at him.

"But-" Scott began to speak in protest.

"Scott, I've got this." His mom interrupted. "She'll be okay. Go."

Scott looked at Lydia worriedly. The banshee only gave a little nod.

"We did it, Scott." The blood pressure meter began to slowly tighten around her arm. "We saved him. It's okay."

* * *

When Stiles awoke a few hours later it wasn't pleasant, mostly because he had no clue where he was or what was happening. His head was floating, yet somehow unbelievably heavy at the same time, and it hurt. My God it hurt.

"Stiles?"

It was Mrs Mcall's voice he heard first.

For some reason Stiles' lips wouldn't move to make a sound. And then he realised that his eyes were still shut.

"Stiles, can you hear me?"

He struggled to lift his eyelids against the harsh clinical light of the hospital room. But eventually he was able to. He was greeted by a worried smile from Scott's mother - the only welcoming element to his surroundings.

Stiles was wearing a hospital gown, yet had no recollection of being changed into it. There was an IV lined up next to his bed. The tube by which it was attached to protruded from his left arm. His other was covered by a plaster cast and held up with a sling that also served to support his injured shoulder. He felt bandages wrapped tight around his head, torso and leg. He could even feel the unpleasant pull of stitches in his cheek. Stiles felt like something out of a cartoon with such a ridiculous array of injuries, but the pain of them made him feel something entirely different.

"My dad." The first panicked words from his lips felt like sawdust. "Where's my dad?"

He lurched forward. Then grunted in agony when his midsection felt as if it was caving in on itself.

"Hey, hey." Melissa placed her hand upon his good arm and gently pushed him back against the slightly raised bed. "Your dad's okay. Everyone's okay. I'll get him for you very soon."

The words were awfully comforting, but Stiles found it hard to resettle himself as the agony of his quick movement bloomed all over him.

"Sorry, sweetie." said Melissa, obviously noticing his discomfort. "We never expected you to wake so soon. I'll give you something for that."

Stiles breathed hard, trying desperately to break through the grogginess that consumed his thoughts. "What happened?" he asked sleepily as Melissa brought a small needle to his arm. "I remember Scott saving us in the woods, but after that there's nothing."

He tried to recall his trip to the hospital, or even out of the preserve, but all he really remembered were hazy bursts of pain. It was like trying to remember new years eve two years ago when he'd drank far too much and wound up passing out on the floor of Scott's lounge. There was only black.

"Scott drove you back here." said Melissa. Stiles felt the pinch of the needle breaking through skin. He didn't even register how he no longer feared it. "You took a few too many knocks to the head, ones that I would guess were supernaturally aided. And you've had to have a transfusion. But it looks like you're in the clear."

"It still hurts."

"Not for long. Give it time to kick in." Melissa smiled at him. She looked tired. Her eyes were red. But her voice was warm."But you should know you're going to have to take it easy for a while. Your ribs are badly bruised, so no sudden movements." Stiles wished he'd known that earlier. "Your bone's been realigned but with that bullet wound, it's hard to say when you'll be able to use your arm properly again. They've stitched everywhere else up, but you have a nasty concussion that you'll feel for a few weeks. So it would be best if you try to avoid being kidnapped by any kind of supernatural creature in the near future."

Stiles let out a half-hearted breath of amusement.

"I'll try my best." he said.

He didn't really know what to think. Maybe once his thoughts settled and his mind was entirely free of anaesthetic it would really dawn on him what had happened, the trauma he'd been through. But right now his only desire was to see his family and friends. And maybe ask for more morphine, because it was beginning to feel unmistakably good. And then maybe he would sleep for a month.

Melissa looked at him a little too long. Stiles noticed a strange sort of pain behind her eyes, as if she was finding it difficult to look a him at all. And for some reason Stiles felt guilty for it.

Melissa took a deep breath and reached out to stroke his hair in a way that only a mother could.

"Just don't do that again, okay?" she said, and her voice was thick with some kind of tamed and tearful distress. Stiles only half understood what she meant. "Please, never again. If it weren't for Lydia..."

"Lydia?" Stiles frowned. "Why Lydia?"

"Maybe you should ask her yourself." Melissa replied. "But I know someone who needs to see you first."

* * *

Stiles hadn't anticipated falling asleep after talking to his father for only ten minutes.

His father had seemed massively relieved at first. The man had even allowed himself tears when he saw his son covered in cuts, bruises and bandages, but awake and definitely alive. But it didn't take long for him to get angry, so unbelievably angry: at Kate, at Stiles, at himself. And then as Stiles started to succumb to a strange dreamless sleep, his father started to make jokes, jokes that were entirely unfunny. None of it made sense, and to Stiles, everything his father did or said seemed strangely distant. Perhaps the pain relief was stronger than he'd thought.

When Stiles next awoke, his dad was clutching his hand tightly, just watching him. He wore an intense expression and his jaw was set. His eyes were fixed on him, unmoving.

Stiles stirred, blinking himself back into reality.

"Not creepy at all, pops." he mumbled under his father's gaze.

The man didn't smile. His expression was unchanging.

Stiles shuffled with a wince, feeling more lucid now. He didn't know how long he'd been sleeping for, but it was long enough for the effects of the morphine to wear off slightly. It made him more aware of the subdued terror on his father's face.

"Dad, it's okay." Stiles tried to reassure, but his voice was like gravel. "I'm okay. You don't have to worry any more."

"You were dead, Stiles."

Stiles suddenly stilled at his father's words.

"I watched them carry your body out of that car. You weren't breathing. You were dead. And I didn't... I couldn't..."

The sheriff took a huge breath and glanced to the ceiling. His hand tightened around Stiles'. Stiles wanted to cry.

"Dad, I wasn't dead." he said. "I'm alive. I'm here. I'm okay."

"You were dead. But you're alive now." Again, Stiles only half understood. "And you better stay that way, alright? You've taken enough years off my life already without giving me a straight up heart attack."

Despite his confusion, there was a welling up in Stiles' throat.

"I'm not going anywhere, Dad."

His father allowed himself a small smile. But Stiles couldn't return it.

"How are we going to pay for this?" he uttered, half to himself.

The sheriff's smile dropped and he let out an exaggerated, almost angry sigh.

"That's not your problem."

"No really, Dad." Stiles pressed. "You can't afford this. Not after everything I've already cost you."

His father let go of his hand, and Stiles didn't like it.

"Dad, I'm being serious-"

"You just got beaten to within an inch of your life, Stiles." The sudden and borderline furious tone of his father's voice made Stiles want to shrivel up and disappear. "You got shot. You almost bled to death for Christ's sake. So you don't get to mention, you don't even get to  _think_  about something as  _meaningless_  as what I can and can't afford. If I catch you worrying about it again, and I mean  _ever_ , I will ground your ass for a month. I'm your father. It's my job to worry about crap like that. You don't get to do my job. In fact, the only thing you get to do is lay here and rest until you're better. And that's it."

Stiles was wide eyed and slightly shocked. He'd never seen his father like this. It was unsettling. It made his chest hurt.

He swallowed, then took a breath.

"Okay." he said. "I promise I'll only worry about purely Stiles orientated problems from this point on."

He said it like it was actually possible.

* * *

Lydia wasn't aware how long she'd been asleep.

She startled awake in the same room, now empty apart from herself. The image of an unconscious and bleeding Stiles was the first thing that bombarded her thoughts. For a few short moments she had to shake the memory of death away and instill that Stiles hadn't actually been claimed by it; that she'd saved him.

Someone had laid a thick coat across her, one she recognised to be Scott's. She pushed it aside and proceeded to swing her legs over the side of the bed. Her whole body quaked.

Apart from herself the room was empty, lonely. When she breathed, the air felt icy cold. It moved from her lungs to her joints to her skin, making her shiver. She didn't know why she felt so cold because it was hardly the middle of winter, but she grabbed Scott's coat anyway and slid her arms into it, wrapping it around her small frame.

Before she'd succumbed to sleep Melissa had told Lydia that besides her particularly low blood pressure there didn't seem to be anything wrong with her. Though that was only on paper. Funny thing about the supernatural was that half the time it was entirely unexplainable and even more so, unpredictable.

Lydia had no idea what effects holding back a banshee scream might have. But right now such a thing seemed completely irrelevant.

The clock on the wall caught her eye and with a shock she realised that is was 8pm. They'd arrived early morning so maybe that meant Stiles would be awake. Maybe she could see him. She neglected to think about how destroyed her sleeping pattern would be now. She was supposed to have been at school today. The idea almost seemed funny.

Lydia was wobbly on her feet as she walked and it took her a long time to find Melissa. The woman seemed to have taken up more shifts than any one person should and she looked exhausted for it. She was rooting through a pile of papers on a desk with a frown when Lydia caught sight of her, though it transformed into a kind but worried smile as she looked up and saw Lydia.

"Lydia." she said. "You're awake."

Lydia tried to smile back.

"I'm looking for Stiles." she said a little nervously. "Is he..?"

"I'm not sure." Melissa replied. "He was in surgery for a couple of hours. He woke up not long ago, but he's on and off. Scott's with him now."

Lydia's shoulders sagged a little. Melissa noticed.

"But patients are allowed two visitors at a time?"

* * *

Stiles was sleeping when she entered.

Scott was sat in the chair by his bed, strangely composed. There was a look of concentration on his face as he stared at his unconscious friend. The werewolf startled a little when Lydia entered. She could physically see him drag himself out of his own head, after which they shared a greeting within a glance. Nothing else was needed.

In the clear light of the hospital, the cuts and bruises on Stiles' face were too striking beneath his dressings. She knew she probably had a couple of her own from where Kate had hit her, but it was nothing she couldn't cover with a little concealer. Stiles didn't have that privilege. These were dark and angry.

She didn't like the way he looked when he was asleep. Not right now. With all his injuries and and his white pale complexion he looked far too much like someone who wasn't going to wake up.

"How long has he been out?" she asked Scott.

"About fifteen minutes."

That surprised her a little.

"I came in after his dad." said Scott. "We talked for a while. He seems okay, I think. Then they gave him more pain meds and he fell asleep again."

Lydia stepped forward and placed her hand upon Stiles'. She curled her fingers around it, trying to find warmth where it didn't exist. She watched the gentle rise and fall of his chest. He stirred a little, his head tilting to the side, probably dreaming. She hoped it was of nice things.

"You saved his life." Scott said rather suddenly, but his voice was quiet.

"You saved both of ours'." Lydia replied.

Scott wasn't looking at her. He was still staring at Stiles as if the boy was an impossible maths problem that he couldn't figure out.

"This should never have happened." he uttered. "I should never have let this happen."

Lydia sighed.

"Scott, I know you've got this whole  _need to save the world_ complex going on right now, but when Stiles wakes up again, I'm sure watching you feel guilty about something you couldn't possibly control will make him feel a whole lot better."

Scott barely registered Lydia's words. His frown only deepened as he receded too far into the depths of his own thoughts.

The werewolf left soon after in the pursuit of well needed sleep, though his real intention might have been to give Lydia some time alone with Stiles. She took his place in the chair and didn't let go of Stiles' hand as she sat down. She didn't know if she ever would.

She sat there for a long time, maybe hours.

At first she felt a little uncomfortable, just watching Stiles sleep. But then the gentle rise and fall of his chest began to comfort her, because it meant he was breathing, whilst this morning he hadn't been.

She wanted him to wake up. She wanted him to wake up so she could yell at him for almost dying, to tell him how much he meant to her, to simply hear his voice. And the longer she sat there the more desperate she became. Stiles' eyes had been closed to her for far too long.

"He's in love with you, isn't he?"

Somehow, Lydia hadn't even noticed Malia enter the room. The voice from the figure just inside the doorway made Lydia jump. She immediately snatched her hand back into her own lap.

"What?" she said.

"I said, he's in love with you, isn't he?"

Lydia glanced from Malia to Stiles, back to Malia, dumbfounded.

"I... no." she replied. "He loves you."

"Are you in love with him?"

"Malia, I-"

"Just answer the question."

Malia didn't seem angry. She seemed frustrated yet reserved, though there was something more powerful bubbling beneath her skin, something she was trying very hard to keep at bay.

Lydia didn't answer. She didn't know how to. Malia breathed in a shaky breath.

"I'm not good at this whole understanding people thing, okay?" she said. "But Scott told me what you did. You saved his life. And I think you love him. And I think he loves you too. And that's okay."

Malia never looked at Stiles once. And Lydia knew that it wasn't okay. It wasn't okay in the slightest.

"I don't know what to say." she said quietly, because she really didn't.

"You don't have to say anything." said Malia. "I think it's pretty clear that he needs you more than he needs me. And maybe I don't need him as much as I thought and I should learn to be less selfish."

"It's okay to be selfish sometimes." said Lydia.

"Not this time." said Malia. "He was trying to teach me how to be a good person. So at least I can say I learnt one thing. But what I came to say is that it's okay. I know you love him. And I heard what Kate said. He loves you too. And that's all okay." She repeated it as if she was trying to assure herself more than Lydia. "I'm gonna go now."

Malia turned, placing a tense hand on the door handle before pausing.

"By the way, Stiles. I can hear your heartbeat. I know your awake."

And then she left.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey, remember me? I'm so sorry guys. What has it been? A year? I wrote this chapter like three times and was never happy with it, each time with major writers block, so I cut it in half and decided to post what I've written and create two separate chapters. I considered giving up on it, but then I read I re-read all your lovely comments and thought how unacceptable that would be of me. I hope it's still enjoyable despite the major time lapse. I know where I'm taking this now, so hopefully I'll get the next chapter out relatively soon. I can't believe I started writing this at the start of season 4. My word how time flies!

Malia left an awfully tense silence in her wake. It burrowed itself into every crack in the room, every cell in Lydia's body.

She watched as Stiles' eyes creaked open to reveal the whiskey gold underneath. He didn't even look at her, just swallowed and blinked at the ceiling. Everything she'd wanted to say to him the second he was awake turned to dust. She searched for something that would make this okay, something that would soften the brittle air, but nothing came.

"How long have you been awake?" she asked stupidly.

The boy before her didn't turn his head even an inch.

"A while." he said. His voice still sounded spent and coarse.

"Are you okay?" Lydia twisted her hands together.

"No, not really." he croaked. His Adam's apple bobbed again.

 _Lydia, you utter idiot,_ she thought. Of course he wasn't okay. His girlfriend had just broken up with him in their first encounter since he'd nearly died, and the fool asking him if he was  _okay_  was the reason for it. She wanted to shrivel up and disappear, to be anywhere else but here, though she couldn't quite bring herself to sprint from the room.

"Stiles, I'm sorry." she said instead. But Stiles didn't seem to register her apology.

"What did you do?" he asked rather abruptly. And finally he looked her in the eye, though it didn't feel the way she'd wanted it to. His gaze was hurt, disconcerted, cold. The fingers on his cast free hand clenched into a fist and opened up again as if he was in possession of an imaginary stress ball. All Lydia wanted to do was reach out and hold it tight.

"I don't understand." she replied even though she had a reasonably good idea of what he meant.

"She said you saved my life." he uttered. "I mean, I know you did. You pretty much dragged me out of that place on your own. But everyone's looking at me like I'm a ghost; like I died and came back to life or something. So what did you do?"

Lydia breathed in slowly. In a way she was glad that Stiles' seemed to be ignoring the real reason Malia had been here, though she'd kind of hoped someone else had already talked to him about her little stunt with death. Lydia knew that she owed him an explanation herself, but she wasn't quite sure of how to word it.

"They're looking at you like you died and came back to life because that's exactly what happened."

She knew she sounded nervous, though she couldn't really blame herself considering the preposterousness of what she'd just said. She bit the inside of her lip.

Stiles didn't say anything. There was something about him that spoke  _traumatised_ as he waited for her to continue. Lydia didn't like it one bit.

"Your heart stopped." she said, her voice as steady as she could make it. "And it was supposed to stay that way."

Stiles looked confused, but he was very still now, watching her with intent eyes.

"I knew you were supposed to die. I knew it way before we got to the hospital, but I denied it, because I couldn't let it happen." Lydia started to waver a little. "I could feel it. I could feel you, just like Alison. I needed to scream, but I didn't. And I think... I think I saved you."

Lydia looked at Stiles not knowing what to expect, but his eyes were back on the ceiling, staring at nothing and somehow everything so long as it wasn't her.

"Oh." he said.

The silence was still there. Even if a fog horn had been going off, it would still be there, pressing upon every inch of her.

"What are you thinking?" she said, because she really had no idea.

Again, Stiles gave no response. Beneath his sling his chest rose a little higher than before. He breathed slow but unsteady breaths, as if he was trying to calm himself.

"Stiles, talk to me."

His eyes turned glossy.

"I guess I'm thinking about how I just died and came back to life,  _again_." he said, sounding frustrated, angry, panicked, and somehow utterly resigned all at the same time. "I'm thinking about how I put my dad through that, how he had to see that happen; about how he's not going to have anywhere near the amount of cash needed to pay for this. I'm thinking about how my arm is broken and my shoulder is screwed and how I'll probably never play lacrosse again. I'm thinking about how Malia just broke up with me because the girl I've had a crush on since the third grade is apparently in love with me and if that's true then how fricking angry I am. I'm thinking about how I'm the reason Allison's dead, and that it's my fault Scott had to kill Kate. I'm thinking about how screwed up this whole situation is, how screwed up our lives are, and that it's not fair."

Stiles' face was stony, his eyes glazed over with brewing anger, quickly receding into something else. Lydia's mouth was open, though she had no response.

"I should go." she said, clutching Scott's coat tighter to her body. She stood up quickly and turned on her feet.

"Lydia, wait."

She halted, then turned back to her friend. All of a sudden guilt was riddling his features.

"I'm sorry." he said thickly. "Don't go."

Slowly Lydia returned to her previous position. She was ashamed at how much she wanted to leave. But there was nothing she could say to make it better, and the helplessness she felt was unbearable.

"You didn't deserve that." Stiles adjusted his position slightly and his face contorted with discomfort. "You saved my life. I should be thanking you."

"It was nothing." said Lydia.

Stiles let out a little breath of amusement as if what she'd said was completely ridiculous. But then suddenly he looked worried.

"You'll be okay, won't you?" he said. It seemed the thought had only just crossed his mind, though it pressed it's horn loudly and ran over a few bystanders as it did so.

"Yeah, I guess." Lydia replied. She chose to leave out the part where she'd been knocked off her feet and bed-ridden all day, her mind plagued by unsettling dreams.

"Are you sure?" Stiles pressed. "Because a  _guess_  isn't sure, and if anything happens to you because of me..."

"I'm fine, Stiles."

"You don't look fine."

"I'm  _fine_."

"Seriously, you look like crap."

Lydia gave a look that conveyed something along the lines of ' _did you really just say that?_ ' and Stiles caught on quickly.

"Only in comparison to the way you normally look." he responded, rushing to save himself. "Which I mean is totally not like crap...at all."

The unamused expression did not leave Lydia's face.

"Oh give me a break, I spent the whole of last night bleeding to death."

"Yeah, I know. I was the one carrying you."

"I helped."

"You were no help at all."

"Come on. I think I deserve a little sympathy here."

"Not now you've insulted my appearance, you don't."

"You're unbelievable."

"Thank you. And for the record, you look like crap too."

"Not really surprising seen as I was dead this morning."

Lydia laughed in spite of the situation, though something twinged in her chest at the bluntness of her friend's words.

Stiles raised his eyebrows.

"I'm glad to see you're taking this all so lightly." he said, a soft chuckle running through his voice.

Lydia laughed again, but the laugh quickly dwindled as tears beaded in her eyes. She tried to repress the emotion rising up within her, but it was a difficult feat. Stiles' eyes widened.

"Lydia?"

Lydia wiped the moisture away promptly.

"I'm sorry." she said. "I'm just tired."

Stiles looked concerned.

"You're not really fine, are you?" he said.

"I thought you were dead. We all did. I'm allowed to be upset, okay?"

"No you're not." said Stiles. "I don't permit it. Lydia Martin is not allowed to be upset because of Stiles Stilinski. It's against the rules."

"Since when did we ever pay attention to any rules?"

Stiles opened his mouth as if to protest, but then his face dead-panned.

"Good point." he said.

Lydia brushed away a tear that had escaped onto her cheek,

"Hey, stop that." Stiles eyebrows drew inward. "Stop crying."

"I ruined a perfectly good pair of shoes last night so I'll cry all I want, thank you very much."

"I'm the one supposed to be having a breakdown here."

"Oh, so you're the only one who gets to have breakdowns now? That seems totally fair."

"Fine." said Stiles. "You win. Cry away."

"Maybe I don't feel like it any more."

"Are you kidding me?"

Lydia sniffed, then the line of her lips curved upwards at the edges. Stiles' did the same, if only slightly. There was another silence, except this one felt slightly warmer. The tension was slowly seeping from the room, though Lydia didn't acknowledge the change.

Stiles smile waned away. He looked at her with that expression, the expression she'd never truly be able to understand or explain. The patch of gauze on his cheek and the pastiness of his complexion vanished to the tug of deep sombre eyes.

"Thank you." he said, his voice lower than before, filled with intention.

"I said it was nothing."

"You saved my life." Stiles repeated. "That's not nothing. So thank you."

Lydia couldn't handle the way he looked at her. It messed something up within her. And the longer she held his gaze the more she wanted to lean in and plant her lips against his in a kiss that said everything she was really feeling: that she wasn't fine, that she hadn't been in a long time; that maybe he could make it better. And she would have done it under different circumstances, in a different time. If only she'd felt it sooner. If only. But right now it was just frustrating, upsetting, undefinable.

"Stiles, Malia was right, you know."

"Huh?" said Stiles.

"Malia was right, about... about the way I feel... about you I mean."

Something told her Stiles had understood her the first time. She wasn't sure what she was saying, but she had to say it. Now more than ever. Even though she'd known somehow for a long time, she'd been too stupid to ever act upon it, too clueless; too proud. And then she'd felt him die, and thought for a second she never would.

She didn't know how she'd expected Stiles to respond, but she couldn't help feeling a little confused when all he did was press his lips together and look away, saying nothing.

"Stiles, I-"

"I can't." he interrupted her, his voice low.

"What?"said Lydia.

Stiles was quiet again, and Lydia realised quickly what he meant. Something tightened in the pit of her stomach.

"I can't." he said again.

"I understand." Lydia replied. "I should go."

This time, Stiles didn't protest. So she went.

* * *

The next morning, Agent McCall dropped into Stiles' hospital room, suited up and seeking answers. Stiles had known that the police would get involved sooner or later. His bullet wound certified that. But even hospital Daytime TV seemed more appealing than an interrogation from Asshole no.1 right now.

Mcall stood at the end of his bed. He spoke clinically, but for once Stiles could hear an underlying level of concern, probably due to his own son's involvement. Stiles responded to each question the way his father had told him to.

"Can you outline exactly what happened to you the night before last?"

"I don't remember." he said.

"Can you tell me who did this to you?"

"I don't remember." he said.

"Can you tell me where your friends found you?"

"I don't remember." he said.

"Can you tell me the last thing you recall before waking up here?"

"Arriving home in my Jeep after the Lacrosse match." he said.

"Did you go inside?"

"I don't remember." he said.

"Can you tell me if there's anyone who might have cause to do this to you?"

"Not that I can think of." he said.

"Can you tell me anything at all?"

"They hit me over the head. I don't remember anything."

It was obvious that Stiles was lying and they both knew it. McCall let out a sigh of frustration.

"Please realise I'm trying to help you here, Stiles." he said. "You and your friends are walking a dangerous line. And I don't want it to be the reason my son winds up in this place next to you. It might not seem like it, but I'm trying to  _protect_  you. So please, help me out here."

"They hit me over the head." said Stiles. "I don't remember anything."

* * *

The man left once he realised the pointlessness of his efforts. And it was a few short hours later, after a day and a half of sitting bored and drugged up in a hospital bed, when everything that had happened finally dawned on Stiles.

That was when the next panic attack struck home. It was the worst he'd had in a long time, not so much because of Kate or his injuries or anything that immediate. It was as if the last two years had been rolled into one and shoved down his throat without warning.

Since they'd defeated the Nogitsune, Stiles hadn't really allowed himself to feel any of it. He'd moved on, found Malia, looked back at everything as if it was some sort of adventure movie; one he could skim over every now and then, entirely separate from his own life. But now there was too much air in the bubble and rather than simply popping, it exploded.

A violent panic attack and a set of badly bruised ribs were a concoction destined for pain. They'd fetched his dad, and once it had died down he'd spent the next couple of minutes with his head buried in the older man's jacket, taking shaking breaths of attempted restraint and anguish. The breaths dissipated into his trembling hands and fingers as he grasped for purchase on the stability his father offered. Occasionally his breath caught and something that resembled a sob wracked through his body. He hadn't acted as such since before Alison's death. And it was only now that he realised now how numb he'd become. It had been a protective barrier, the only way to stand head on in the tidal wave of crap that was constantly heading their way. Though the facade was never really going to last forever. And as it peeled away, his father said nothing, only resisted crying himself, cradling Stiles the same way he had after his mother had died. Somehow the man understood what was happening. Somehow he knew it was necessary.

* * *

Scott visited him again soon after that. When Stiles asked about what they planned to do about the bodies they'd left in the woods, Scott informed him that the Calaveras had taken care of it with a little bargaining on behalf of Chris Argent. Supposedly the ruthless hunters were actually pretty grateful to Scott for clearing up the mess that they'd created in failing to take out Kate. By clearing away the bodies, they apparently took that as a means to form a kind of treaty, so at least that was one thing off their minds. On the other hand, there was still a very much alive beserker out there, no longer under the power of Kate and free to do God knows what. But frankly Stiles couldn't really care about that. It hadn't killed anyone he loved, and for that he was some twisted form of grateful. Apparently it had left his father, Derek and Argent unconscious outside of school, but mostly unharmed, and when they awoke it had vanished, clearly no longer tied to Kate's bidding. So that was good, he guessed.

As Scott spoke, Stiles registered that he didn't seem like himself. He knew why, but didn't say anything. He probably would one day, but definitely not today. Scott wasn't a killer. He never would be. But he'd killed, and Stiles didn't know how long it would take for his friend to forgive himself for that.

Malia had visited him shortly after that. She hadn't mentioned anything about the previous evening and had talked to him the same way she always did. It was very strange, but somehow not. The elephant left the room very quickly, or maybe they were both just choosing not to acknowledge its existence. If it did exist, it wasn't really an elephant. It was more like a small, unobtrusive cat curled up in the corner. And it was only once she'd left that Stiles started to question the bazaar nature of the situation.

Malia was beautiful, funny, and he felt protective of her. Maybe he could have even loved her some day. And now she'd no longer share his bed, or wear his clothes, or kiss him, and it left him feeling oddly hollow.

Stiles was let out the next day. His father insisted on driving him home, though Scott's bike was already parked outside his house when they pulled up.

He hadn't seen Lydia since their last semi-awkward encounter. He was aware that it was because of him rather than her, and he really didn't know how to feel about that. At the same time, it was really just another thing on the pile. As his shoulder nudged the door on his way out of his dad's car and pain struck through him, all he could think was  _screw this_. His head span and his vision darkened, his concussion still reeking havoc. When he levelled out Scott was there and the pain was gone and the werewolf's hand was leeching black from his own.

"Dude, take it easy." Scott's voice was light hearted, his face the same as he he hid the pain he was drawing remarkably well.

"I was opening a car door, not running a marathon." Stiles said bitterly.

He slipped out onto his feet, more than a little wobbly. Scott removed his hand.

"Hey, I didn't say you should stop." Stiles protested.

"Kid, I don't want you relying on werewolf juju the same way I do my whiskey. You've seen that downward spiral first hand."  
The sheriff made his way to his son's side. He attempted to offer a supporting arm to which Stiles refused with shake of his head.

"S' a little different, surely." Stiles said, admittedly annoyed that his dad was comparing his emotional stifler to the exact cure for his own very physical suffering. "Were-syphoning doesn't exactly seem like the sort of thing you'd go to rehab for."

"You can get addicted to anything if you try hard enough." said the sheriff.

Stiles looked at Scott, but his friend only gave a helpless shrug.

"Alright then." said Stiles. "Let's do this."

He could make it to the door alone. After three days of being pandered over, of having everything done for him, he could do this.

He started to walk, ignoring the pain of damaged muscle and nerve endings in his leg. Though he was only half way when he had to deny the way the ground tilted left then right.

"Oh God." he uttered as a nasty wave of nausea swept over him. His father registered Stiles' unsteadiness and raced forward to hook an arm around his side. He grabbed Stiles' good arm and hoisted it over his shoulders firmly.

"I was shot once. Wasn't so bad. Quit attention seeking." he said.

"Since when did you get shot?"

Stiles appreciated his father's offered distraction from his failure.

"There's a lot you don't know about your old man." said the sheriff.

Stiles eyes widened a little.

"You probably accidentally shot yourself in the foot or something, unless you want to tell me you used to be some kind of action hero."

The sheriff just shook his head with a sigh, signalling that it was a story Stiles' would disappointingly never hear.

"I got shot once too." said Scott as they opened the door and made their way into the Stilinski household.

"It doesn't count if you don't have the scar tissue to prove it." said the sheriff.

"I second that." said Stiles, and then, "Dad, you can let go now."

But his father didn't let go until Stiles was sat safely on the sheriff proceeded to turn the TV on. Some kids programme he'd never heard of flickered to life on the screen. Then the older man headed to the kitchen to make coffee. Stiles' eyes followed him from the room and then suddenly rushed to Scott.

"Dude, you gotta save me." he pleaded. Scott relaxed against the far arm of the couch and a chuckle-esque sound left his lips.

"I don't think there's any getting out of this, Stiles."

"I'm gonna die, Scott. I'm gonna  _die_  if you leave me here with him. For real this time."

"It's not that bad."

"You're not the one who's had to spend time with him. He's been treating me like I'm made of glass, Scott. He's making me watch My Little Pony,or whatever the hell this crap is." Stiles gestured at the animation on the television. "He said no school for two weeks.  _Two weeks!_ What's the point in surviving death if you don't get to live afterwards? Seriously."

"You know I can hear everything you're saying." came the sheriff's voice from the other room. Stiles' mouth dropped open. Scott's lips turned into a smirk. Stiles' face became adamantly grumpy once more.

"Good." he said back, replicating the raised volume of his father's voice. "So you know it's not okay."

"Nope. Me being protective of my idiot son who keeps getting himself hurt is perfectly fine by my standards."

"But..."

"I really don't care what you have to say Stiles."

Stiles glared at Scott.

"You see what I mean?  _I'm going to die._ "


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I owe everyone an apology. I wrote this whole chapter like a year ago and then my computer crashed and I lost it. I never had the time or patience to re-write it so I basically gave up on finishing Human. I just found it in a random file somewhere and thought there's no point in not posting it, especially seen as I've gotten a few frustrated messages from newer readers. I know how annoying it is to start a story that's never finished so I'm really sorry. This chapter ends really bluntly and I don't know if I will ever write a real ending. I really want to. I've just forgotten how to write :( Hopefully though now I've found this chapter I'll have another writing spurt! Thank ya, love Han x

Over the next couple of days, Stiles started to recover slowly.

He'd been taken aback by the state of his face when he'd first looked in the hospital bathroom mirror. The split lip and butterfly stitches across his eyebrow were nothing compared to the sickly dark purple of his cheek. It veined it's way across swollen skin into mottled greys, turning darker again at his jaw. The patch of gauze covering the worst point of impact did little to hide the damage.

Stiles could have sworn Kate hadn't hit him enough times to leave him looking quite this terrible. But then he remembered that the were-jaguar could have taken his head clean off with one blow if she'd really wanted to. In reality he was lucky to have escaped without any permanent kind of disfigurement or brain damage. Hopefully that was the case anyway.

Now the bruising had tamed itself a little, having adopted a green-grey tinge in place of the fading purple. It still looked nasty, but at least now he didn't jump every time he happened to glance in a mirror. Or maybe he was just getting used to looking like he'd face planted a brick wall. And maybe two weeks off school wasn't actually that bad of an idea. An inconvenience, yes, but at least he'd avoid all the stupid side glances and intrusive questions he couldn't answer.

Now he was sat with Scott in his own living room for the third evening in a row. Scott hadn't actually been home since Stiles had left the hospital, only leaving the Stilinski household to go to school. Despite not vocalising as such, Stiles was incredibly grateful for it. It meant his father could actually go to work and stop ceaselessly making him mugs of tea and coffee when he'd never asked. At least for a little while anyway.

However it wasn't just his father that was driving him a little insane. It was Scott too. Stiles was finding it increasingly difficult to ignore the look on his friend's face; the constant concern he was trying to hide, and the constant feeling that something was being hidden from him. Stiles knew he couldn't blame Scott for acting as such, but he was okay, and he wished that people would believe him when he told them that.

Yesterday, Scott had walked in on him, stood up in his room, scribbling semi-sensical theories upon his board regarding the benefactor. His head had been throbbing all day and he badly needed a distraction.

Stiles' handwriting was scraping the standard of a four year old's, but that wasn't exactly his fault seen as the arm he'd normally write with was strapped to his chest in a sling.

"Stiles, what are you doing?" Scott had said.

"Something productive." Stiles had responded.

Scott gave him a stupid, concerned, parental kind of look that instantly irked Stiles to the core.

"Hey, you wanna help me try to figure this out? Or are you just gonna stand there?" he'd said. Scott tried to smile as he stepped into the room.

"Why don't you leave the benefactor to the rest of us for a while? You know, the people it actually concerns?" Scott spoke in the most light-hearted way he could manage. But Stiles didn't appreciate it much at all.

"All of my friends are part of a list of people that are being murdered one by one" he'd said, picking up a small sheet of paper and taping it up. "And so far we've done nothing but help the benefactor out by crossing another name off that list. So it most definitely concerns me, Scott. I am really _really_ concerned right now."

"Dude, I'm just saying that you should give yourself a break." Scott's voice was nothing but kind, and it only frustrated Stiles more. "You kinda deserve it, don't you think?"

"I don't _deserve_ anything." Stiles retaliated. "Except for maybe knowing my friends are safe. That would be pretty nice."

Scott's face returned to concern. So Stiles just continued to write, struggling with his left hand as it ached with the unfamiliar usage. He felt more annoyed that anything else when his vision began to blur and he had to plant the same hand against the board to stay steady, his eyes shut tight at the pain in his temple. _Not again_ , he thought.

"Stiles?" Scott immediately launched himself forward, placing an intended-to-be comforting hand on Stiles back.

"Dammit," muttered Stiles, re-opening his eyes and attempting to blink his vision back into focus. "I'm fine." he said, but Scott stayed put. "I'm fine, Scott. It's just the concussion."

He shrugged Scott's hand away, but then had to bite his lips together when there was another stab of pain to his head. He shut his eyes again, putting more weight against the board, breathing through it slowly.

"Some concussion, huh?" said Scott.

Stiles just made a pained sound of frustrated agreement. He took a couple more breaths as the throbbing in his head subsided to a manageable level.

He looked at Scott, who now just raised his eyebrows in a way that Stiles could only identify as condescending. Stiles was more than a little frustrated. He needed to prove to Scott that he could function on his own, and his body wouldn't let him. The expression didn't leave his friends face, so Stiles thrust his pen down upon his desk with an exasperated eye roll.

"Fine." he said. "I'll just sit on the couch and be completely and utterly unhelpful. Would that make you happy?"

Scott looked as if he didn't know how to answer for a second, but then just responded with a nonchalant "Kinda, yeah."

Stiles' shoulders slumped. And knowing he'd never be able to concentrate with Scott watching over him as a personal babysitter, he walked past his friend and out of his room, heading for the kitchen rather than the lounge as a half-hearted form of resilience. Scott followed idly behind him.

"Have you called Lydia since you got back?" asked the werewolf as he watched Stiles switch on the kettle and pull out an opened packet of instant coffee from a cupboard. Stiles heart picked up a little at the mention of Lydia's name.

"Haven't got round to it." he replied. "Why? Is she okay?"

"She wasn't at school today, or yesterday."

Stiles hesitated, worry rising. His mind immediately conjured a bunch of worst case scenarios in which Lydia's absence meant only horrifically bad things. Though they were probably all a few hundred miles from any kind of accuracy.

"You know why?" he asked, only glancing very shortly at Scott.

"Yeah," said Scott. "I rang her. She's okay. I think what happened took a lot out of her. I just wondered if you had."

Stiles relaxed a little. He proceeded to pull out a mug and pour an extensive amount of instant coffee powder into it.

"Should I have?" he said.

"I don't know, should you?"

Stiles didn't answer.

It was the next day and Stiles still hadn't called her. He'd received several texts from the banshee, asking if he was okay, asking if he wanted company, and he'd responded to them relatively bluntly, not unkindly though, subtly implying with each one that he didn't want to see her. He knew he was being a pretty awful person and had been since he'd gotten back from the hospital, but he couldn't bring himself to talk to her again. Not quite yet.

Scott had just gotten in from school. Stiles immediately sensed the stress that radiated from him as he walked through the door, probably education related, but upon asking Scott merely deflected the question, saying that he was fine.

The Sheriff was still in, attempting to work from home at the kitchen table. He refused to leave Stiles alone, and Stiles was starting to concern himself profusely over the lack of money that would be coming in if his father wasn't working, especially with a shiny new hospital bill on top of the growing pile.

Today hadn't much helped his situation. Stiles had been managing reasonably well to keep the ongoing effects of his head injury hidden from his father. But whilst attempting to make lunch with one hand he'd very nearly collapsed right in front of the man. His dad had held him up whilst he'd tried desperately to regain control of his own mind and body. The sheriff had was on the phone to the hospital almost immediately afterwards, exclaiming angrily how ' _this wasn't supposed to still be happening'_ and that ' _there must be a way to make him better'_. The only thing they advised was for Stiles to keep taking the Tylenol they'd given him, so the sheriff hung up and called Melissa instead. Melissa cautiously offered stronger pain relief, taking care to add that it would be at Stiles' own discretion as it could wind up messing with his mental state even further. Stiles turned down the offer, choosing to refrain from turning himself into a drugged up vegetable. Obviously, the only thing that could make him better was time.

One thing that certainly wouldn't was his father refusing to leave the house even after Scott had arrived early due to a free last period.

However, soon later the sheriff received a relatively urgent police call. Stiles asked three times what it was about, each time more exasperated than the last as his father repeatedly assured him that it was none of his business. The man was adamant in ignoring the call at first, but if Stiles wasn't allowed to know what was going on, he could at least insist that his dad go do his job.

"Dad, I'll be _fine_. Scott's here. Please, go."

The sheriff looked at Scott indecisively.

"You call me if anything happens." he addressed the werewolf sternly. "And I mean _anything_. He starts getting dizzy, nauseous, showing signs of pain, you better call me."

Scott promised the man he'd abide by his wishes, and with that reassurance the sheriff reluctantly left the two of them sitting on the couch alone.

"Wanna play COD?" asked Scott innocently, a short time after the door had shut behind the older man.

"Are you trying to taunt me?" Stiles responded.

Scott's eyes dropped to Stiles' non-functioning arm.

"Oh, crap. I forgot." he said.

"Really?" Stiles exclaimed. "You're sitting right next to me. And you forgot?"

Scott tilted his head.

"Wanna order pizza?" he suggested instead, ignoring Stiles' jibe.

"Can't afford it, man."

"But I can."

"No you can't."

Scott sighed.

"How long is this going to last?" he asked.

"What?"said Stiles.

"You being like this."

"Like what?"

"A miserable asshole?"

"I've always been one of those, Scotty."

"Huh." said Scott.

At that moment, Stiles felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. He fished it out to find Lydia's name lit up across the screen.

 _We should talk,_ read the text.

Stiles stared at it blankly. Scott didn't even have to sneak a peek to know what would conjure this type of reaction from his friend.

"You're gonna have to see her eventually." he said.

Stiles didn't respond, just kept staring.

Then the doorbell rang.

Stiles looked up to Scott with a questioning frown. Scott shrugged, returning the look, then stood up to answer the door.

Stiles heard it open, then voices. Then,

"Hey, Stiles."

The voice was tired, exhausted even, and rough, but he shuffled around at its familiarity, his heart picking up. There was Lydia, in his living room, phone still in hand.

"I said we should talk." she said.

Stiles forgot everything when he saw her. She was wearing a large, un-Lydia like sweatshirt and carrying a white bag. There were dark circles under her eyes. Her shoulders were curled in as if for warmth. Her skin was ashy. The colour from her cheeks was gone. He'd rarely seen anyone look so ill.

He lurched to his feet, ignoring the dizziness that came with the movement, and stalked over to her, worry permeating through him. He panicked a little, his working hand dusting over her shoulder to her cheek where her skin was ice to the touch.

"What happened to you?" he said, a little harsher than necessary. Lydia didn't answer right away. She just tried to offer a half-smile instead.

"Lydia, what happened?" Stiles repeated, the fear in his voice sounding through. "What's wrong with you? You're... Please tell me this isn't to do with you saving me."

"Stiles..."

"I should have called you. I should have come to see you. I didn't know..."

"Stiles." Lydia voice became more forceful. "Sit back down. I'm fine."

But Stiles just turned to Scott instead.

"Did you know about this?" he asked firmly.

"About what?" Scott responded.

"This!" Stiles gestured to Lydia's frailty. "Look at her, Scott. Why didn't you tell me it was affecting her this badly?"

"He didn't know, Stiles." Lydia cut in.

Stiles paused and glanced at Scott again, whose eyes were flickering between Stiles and Lydia, looking equally concerned for both of them. Though his friend was never good at lying, and his face made it clear that Stiles wasn't hearing the whole truth.

Despite this, or maybe because of it, his voice grew a little less angry and a hell of a lot more worried.

"Why didn't you tell me, Lydia?"

Lydia's eyes lost the remaining warmth in her body. Her voice grew taut.

"I tried, Stiles. You wouldn't let me."

 _Of course she tried._ The texts she'd sent him were proof of that. Stiles wanted someone to slap him. He stepped, half stumbled backwards until he landed against the back of the couch, his hand rubbing his face anxiously, not sure what to say. _Sorry_ might have been a good start.

There was a silence, a tense one, until Scott looked down at his phone and his eyes widened a little.

"Hey guys, my mom needs me. I gotta go."

"What?" Stiles said the word bluntly and in far too callous of a manner.

Scott was already slipping his phone back into his pocket.

"Sorry. It's important."

It didn't go unnoticed by Stiles the way Scott and Lydia shared a quick knowing glance before Scott began to head for the door. Stiles' face went from unhappy to suspicious in a matter of moments.

"Hold on." he said. "What's going on? Why does she need you?"

An urgent police call and now this. Something was up.

Scott turned back, only for a second, his eyes flickering to Lydia again.

"It's work related." he said, frustratingly ambiguous. "I'm sure your dad will be okay so long as Lydia's here, right?"

"Yeah." It was Lydia that answered, her voice still worn. "Go help your mom."

Scott nodded, gave a half-hearted smile, then left, giving Stiles no say in the matter and wondering what the hell was happening.

"You two are acting like you just killed someone." said Stiles after he left.

Lydia gave a little breath of amusement.

"It's not quite that serious."

She came and perched herself next to Stiles, and Stiles watched as a shiver ran over her, a motion she unsuccessfully tried to hide from him.

"In the hospital, you told me you were okay." said Stiles, swallowing the lump in his throat.

"I didn't know it would get this bad." said Lydia. "But that's not what I wanted to talk to you about."

Stiles was starting to realise the real reason why Scott had left them alone. He knew this moment had to come eventually, but he couldn't deny the dread he was feeling.

"Then what?" he asked cautiously.

Lydia raised her eyebrows.

"Well first things first, I thought I should let you know that you're an insensitive asshole."

Stiles nearly laughed.

"That's the second time I've been called an asshole in the last five minutes." he noted aloud. "Point taken."

"And secondly," said Lydia. "We're gonna order pizza and watch a movie, right now."

"What?" said Stiles.

"You have no say in this. It's happening."

"Am I being set up here?"

"Isn't that obvious?"


End file.
